Sasuke Path to Redemption
by Will Heins
Summary: Only when his best friend Naruto turned around and went back to the village did Sasuke truly realise that his journey had started. "One day we will fight again Naruto. At that day I will proudly wear this headband and it will represent me as a whole person, someone worthy of your trust. But until then..."
1. The World That I See

Only when Naruto turned around and went back to the village did Sasuke finally realised - his journey for redemption had started.

And he couldn't help but feel elated.

Yes, as Sasuke went through his many emotions (some of them far darker than he wanted to admit) the one feeling that stood out the most was indeed elation. He couldn't help but smirk tiredly at this. He had a completely unknown future in front of him, he was banned from the village for who knows how long (and plausible from all the other big villages as well) he had no place he could call home, nothing to really do with his life... yet here he was…

The word 'crazy' went over his mind but he quickly let go of it. He was crazy once and he remembered it very clearly while this... this right now was something else. Though who knew, maybe there were many ways in which a human being could be crazy?..

 _Maybe out there somewhere, I will find a person who will give me an answer to this question… and some other ones as well._

He looked at the headband held tightly in his sole hand and then at the winding road in front of him. With a confident nod he put the metal object in his ninja pack on his waist and moved on.

 _The time will come when we will fight again, Naruto. On that day I will wear this headband as a sign that I am a whole person. Someone who is not hunted by the past. Someone who is worthy of your trust. But only then will I truly accept it. _

_…_

Even though his mind was flying over every possibility he now had at his disposal in general the Uchiha felt tired.

This day was far from being a pleasant one.

The Kage's made damn sure of it.

…

Sasuke was enough distance away from the village that the chance of seeing a random passerby was minimum and yet, no matter this fact, he somehow managed to be greeted with a whole crowd of travelers. And as it happened, the crowd was marching right on the secluded road he was using. _So much for solitude_ , he thought annoyed.

The crowd which at first looked quite big actually consisted of only two families.

As they came closer Sasuke could see three kids running off at the front, all of them laughing and talking loudly about the bright future that awaits them while behind them followed two men and a woman. Both men looked peaceful enough but the woman showed great inner conflict on her face.

"You think we will fair better in Konoha, Tanaki, Toza?" Her voice rang clearly through the still vast space that separated them.

"We don't have any other choice, Tsuma." The man with a brownish hair said slowly, kindly. "I'm sure we'll manage somehow. Ain't that right, brother?"

The other man who appeared to be taller and lot more intimidate looking only shrugged in response.

Now Sasuke could see that they all carried a great deal of baggage with them. Even the kids.

Immigrants, he concluded with ease.

When the adults finally saw Sasuke approach they stopped, wide eyed and shocked. And then when the initial surprise faded they immediately reached out for their kids trying to shield them away. Few, tense seconds later the man whom Sasuke heard speaking before had stepped forward, with an unsure smile on his face.

"Hello there, fellow traveler! Going to Konoha by any chance?" the question was asked in a light, carefree tone but behind the brown haired man both adults were frowning and gazing unsure at the brooding boy. To be more accurate they were gazing in fear at his no doubt recognizable purple eye.

"No." Sasuke replied shortly, tone flat. The man in front of him let out a nervous laugh, "Ah, pity, we are on our way just there! You know, a ninja village where it's safe? We sure could have used some company..." He laughed some more but tensely and then cast a short nod to the others after which they slowly started moving ahead.

Sasuke's eyes almost went wide when he realised that the man he was speaking with was actually buying time and making sure Sasuke kept his attention solely on him instead of his family. "Well, we'll be moving on then! Have a good day!" he said a minute later when the gang had gone on ahead and was out of hearing range. One more minute passed and the crowd had hurriedly turned around the corner, completely disappearing from view. Their scared stares being the last thing to remember them by.

Sasuke was left confused.

 _What was this? Why were they afraid of me even though I haven't even done anything_?

He felt anger rise in him.

Ignorant fools.

Frowning at such stupidity Sasuke had started walking on again. His pace brisk and his strides wide.

Why? Why did people act as they did? Why would some cling to love and destroy themselves for it? As this brown haired man did for his family… as Itachi had done for him.

Why?

An image appeared in his mind. Green eyes and pink hair.

Yes, Sakura too. She had nothing to do with his sins and yet she kept reaching out just as Naruto did.

 _So again, why? Or do I simply not understand what love is?.._

One more hour in his walk and he felt the temperature slowly start to decrease. This made him get out of his trance.

Casting a short glance up onto the sky he was surprised to see it was already early evening.

"Should have started off sooner…" he whispered quietly. Shaking his head at his more than weird day he went off the road and into the thick foliage of the trees. It took him another thirty minutes at most to find a good enough clearing to spend the night at. Sasuke hadn't picked any chakra in the radius so that meant he was still far off from any settlements.

As the sky started turning bloody red Sasuke found himself thankful for the long cloak and the warmth it provided. It was almost the end of the autumn. Soon it will probably even snow.

Getting comfortable under a thick oak tree the boy reached for his bag and finally decided to see what has been packed for him by his old mentor.

The first thing he noticed was that the backpack itself was very easy to reach out to and open. It went over his right shoulder and the straps were long enough to reach over to his waist, thus, even with just one hand Sasuke had no trouble in using it. Any normal ninja attire had numerous pockets in them and Sasuke was sure those would be problematic in his current state but this bag had only one big section in it.

 _Kakashi must have gone all the way out and ordered it for me._

Feeling a tiny spark of gratitude the boy went on with his exploring.

Firstly he noticed a piece of paper laying right on top of his new belongings. Taking it in his hand he found that the said parchment was way too thick to simply be a friendly letter. Furrowing his eyebrows Sasuke wondered what was so important that Kakashi couldn't say it to him when he was back at Konoha.

Time to find out.

 _Sasuke,_

 _You probably noticed that during this whole day we had...observers. If not - now you know. A special team of ANBU was selected to keep tabs on you with members from all the great villages. They will probably follow you through your journey. They are following you right now. Do not provoke them! Even if they might do so to you. Their reports for the five Kages will decide how long your banishment will last. So I will repeat myself - do not provoke them. Otherwise everything Naruto, Sakura and I worked for will be ruined. I understand that right now you want to be as far as you possibly can from the village still don't forget - time flies. At some point you will have to settle down somewhere and all members of team seven, me included, hope that you will choose Konoha by that time._

 _As far as I know they were not ordered to tail you 24/7. But stay sharp. The information I've given you is top secret and you should not be aware of it. I trust you understand the concept. After reading this burn the letter or otherwise make sure it does not go to the wrong hand._

 _The Uchiha bank account was reopened. Now you can receive the money almost everywhere, but, keep in mind - people are slow to forget. There's also a limitation on how much you can withdraw in a certain time period. Kage's decision. You can ask for the details about this limitation from the staff._

 _P. S._

 _In addition I've gave you a stack of paper and a special ink designed by Sai. You can write letters if you want and no one will be able to read them apart from the receiver. It's chakra sensitive._

 _P. P. S._

 _I hope you like the bag. Sakura made it especially for you._

After going through the letter one more time Sasuke did as Kakashi told him. He burned it. Actually he used it as a material to start his small fire for the night but who would care for the difference.

As the new Hokage wrote, right below the letter Sasuke found some papers and three bottles of ink. Each with a name on it. His first instinct was to throw those in the fire but when he was about to do it, something at the back of his mind protested at the idea.

 _It might be useful_ , he concluded solemnly.

Deciding to wait with the bag revision Sasuke went over the contents of the letter in his mind.

Kakashi went out of his way to give him the heads up about the ANBU, something Sasuke did not expect at all. He frowned at the possible reasons for this. Either his old sensei was cautious for his own reputation or he actually still cared for him. Deciding to ignore this for now Sasuke went to the other important part. Kakashi wrote 'the wrong hand' so it meant that the Raikage was responsible for the surveillance. Sasuke was not that surprised to conclude that this was also a warning to stay away from the land of Cloud. _For now_ , the boy agreed in understanding.

His eyes fell on the bag.

So it was Sakura who thought of it. Somehow it all made perfect sense. He simply couldn't imagine the lazy Hatake sitting around and making such a thing. But Sakura, she would. _So that's what she was doing_ … Sasuke thought amused, it was quickly pushed away though. _Not now_. He ordered himself.

Sasuke decided to get back to his few belongings.

Next to the paper and the ink there was a small transparent bag. In it he could clearly make out a soap, a small bottle which was probably shampoo, few rolls of bandages and what appeared to be a new toothbrush and towel. The bandages got the boys attention. After staring at them for some good few minutes Sasuke moved them to his weapon holder. _They would be so much easier to reach for there._

After all those things came one big tent which took all the lower space of the bag. At first Sasuke didn't want to bother and open it out of sheer laziness, but then again, it was much more reasonable to go over everything now since he had already started. Sighing slowly he took out the pack and looked it over. The tent was waterproof - as he read on the side label - breathable and wind resistant. _Expensive_ , Sasuke thought in annoyance. He did not deserve to have this! Pushing it aside he almost growled out loud. Once again his team had went out of their way for him. Just so he could be comfortable. And once again all he could do was question why…

 _Because we're friends!_

 _Because I love you…_

. . .

His idea to finish everything at once was rewarded when he found another, smaller package inside the tent. A sleeping bag. Now this was something he was greatly thankful for. It was lot more safer to sleep this way. If he was attacked all he had to do is just push the cover away. The tent was too much trouble he concluded. Sasuke was about to push it aside when a strong gust of wind went through the small clearing successfully pulling few sticks out of the fire. Winter, the boy repeated to himself while fixing the fire, and it meant rain and snow as a minimum. Maybe having such cover as a last resort might not such a bad idea after all.

And that made everything.

Looking at all of this Sasuke wondered if he needed anything else. When he traveled in the past he always had a destination to reach in the end. So he never really took anything with him, apart from weapons. Weapons. The Uchihas gaze fell on his sword. _I will need a sharpening stone._ Sasuke didn't even want to think of where his old stone had ended up. It could be somewhere in Konohas IT department where he was held or it could even be somewhere out there on the old battlefield! Sasuke made a mental note to visit the battle scene in the near future and at least look for it since it was one of the few possessions he got left from his clan. In the mean time he had no choice but to buy a new one.

Another few minutes passed and it became completely dark with only the small fire to give light. Sasuke looked around with his sharingan trying to detect any movements or chakra signatures but in the end he found nothing.

Maybe the ANBU squad decided to give me a free evening, the boy thought ironically. Not much evil can be done when you just left interrogation department. Sasuke smirked at this. If he so wanted the said building could have gone to hell in mere seconds. And the squad designed to survey him… he could kill them off so fast they wouldn't even know!

Sasuke whole body tensed when he realised where his thoughts had taken him. It's a straight way to insanity. He shook his head abashed.

Long ago - he actually felt like it was a lifetime ago - Orochimaru had made him meditate as part of his training. Back then he had done it to collect chakra but maybe now he could use it for his mind. As originally the monks did.

Deciding to insert meditation in his routine, and hoping it will help with his ever rampaging thoughts, Sasuke started to pack everything back, that is until his eyes caught some small object at the bottom of the bag. Without a second thought he reached for the thing. It appeared to be a small box. Turning it around Sasuke had found a small, messy writing on the side.

For cuts and injuries.

It was a remedy.

Sakura again. This time Sasuke did smile. She truly was a medic to her core.

He quickly packed everything back except the sleeping bag and with a swift move put off the dying fire.

Sleep.

He needed sleep.

And a plan.

* * *

 **This chapter was rewritten on May 19 to better portrait the one and only Sasuke Uchiha.**

 **Honestly, he is one tough character to write and I hope I'm doing him justice.**

 **Read.**

 **Enjoy.**

 **Review! ^_^**


	2. Chapter 2

The next day had began in the worst possible way a sleep deprived Sasuke could have wished for.

The Uchiha was woken up on the crack of dawn by a nagging presence constantly getting in and out of his sensing range. But it never came close enough for him to make out who it was. Or at least close enough for him to ask.

It pissed Sasuke off more than he wanted to admit.

After the sleeping daze had cleared for a bit he realised that the nagging presence, one he wanted to kill very badly right now for interrupting his rest, was probably his surveillance team. Or a surveying person since he only felt one chakra signature.

Sasuke had flared his own chakra showing that he was aware of the observer. Kakashi warned him to leave the ANBU alone but complete ignorance was as good giveaway as any. He was a damn good ninja and he would confront them as any sane ninja would do.

As Sasuke was slowly getting up from his sleeping bag the presence had suddenly disappeared leaving absolutely no trace left behind.

"A shadow clone?" he murmured surprised.

 _So that's how they would keep tabs. Too afraid to do it in person it seems._

Smirking at his realisation the boy saw no sense in prolonging his stay and decided to head out immediately. Anger now gone from his mind as well as sleep.

After everything was packed he found his way to the main road once more. It was still barely visible but the sun was slowly but surely taking its place in the sky. Sasuke thought it was around six in the morning, good enough time to start the day.

If memory served him well he was supposed to end up near the first big trading village inside of Konoha territory.

 _The village where I saw Itachi for the first time after so many years._

And of course the memory didn't fail him.

After an hour of peaceful walk he started to notice first signs of human intervention. The branches in the woods were bent in the wrong way, smaller paths being visible from the main road. Moments later he even saw a what appeared to be a local hunter with arrows and a bow at his side. The older man looked at him once and after that went off with his pursuit. Sasuke couldn't decipher anything of his emotions apart from cold curiosity and an obvious question of 'What are you doing here so early?'.

In another hour he found himself in front of the small gate in a not so bigger wall which was stretching all around the perimeter of the settlement.

It looked like it might fall at any second.

Sasuke wondered why would such a wealthy village have a wall of such low quality. Made of wood. Probably by a child.

Seeing that the entrance was still closed Sasuke decided to jump over and not disturb anyone inside. It was still early morning and most were probably still asleep.

 _Unlike me,_ he frowned.

What came to view on the other side had shocked the young adult quite greatly.

What once was a wealthy trading village with lots of small booths everywhere, selling everything one would ever wish for, now was a village of ruins. Most of the houses were destroyed or partly destroyed by enormous chakra tree branches sticking out of the earth. Some cocoons were still laying on the sides with flies flying over them. When he came closer to the nearest white cocoon he was greeted with a rotten smell of death.

 _Why haven't anyone cleaned this?_ He wondered when his eyes caught the decaying corpse inside. _It's almost two months after the war._

The streets were empty so far so Sasuke decided to walk around the town hoping that in the center things were better.

 _And_ _I still need a sharpening stone._

As he went through the streets he noticed that the situation was the same everywhere. At some places he even saw traces of a fire right in the middle of the road.

 _Fighting? Were there clashes here? But what for?_

 _No_ , he answered to himself. The evidence didn't point to a fight. It had to be something else.

When Sasuke turned to another block his eyes were met with by far the biggest chakra tree root he saw. In diameter it was as big as the houses around it. Some of its smaller branches looked like a spiderweb and they stretched as far as his eyes could follow. Probably all around the village.

Coming closer the Uchiha outstretched his sole hand and touched the root. It was cold to the touch but strangely _charged_. As if the energy was still flowing through it!

But it couldn't be.

When Naruto and him stopped the jutsu it was supposed to stop the chakra gathering process completely. Everywhere.

Furrowing his eyebrows Sasuke took a kunai and cut off the smaller branch but right before his eyes it grew back to the way it was. He tried again and again to no avail.

 _Strange._

"This won't work Sasuke Uchiha."

Turning around the boy saw an old man staring at him through the broken window. He looked rather sick.

"Why wasn't this cut off?" the Uchiha asked straight away.

The old man scowled.

"We tried you brat, but it's no use! It only grows back."

Sasuke was about to ask why hadn't they hired any ninjas to cut it for them but the word 'brat' stopped him.

"And it's all your fault Uchiha! Don't think of us as stupid, we heard the stories, we know of your _help,_ traitor! All these lives lost are on your hands!" after saying this the man turned around and disappeared in the darkness of the house.

Looking around Sasuke could see that more people came out to look at him, none of them left the protection of their houses though. But it's not this fact that surprised the black haired adult, it was their faces...

Hate.

Sasuke saw hate and fear on them.

His eyes landed on the root again and in seconds a plan was formed in his head.

The tree was the source of their problems. It looked as though people continued to die because of its presence and no ninjas were here to help.

He decided to get rid of it.

Very slowly Sasuke reached for his sword while already molding the right amount of chakra needed for a strong lightning release.

A soft, almost unhearable whisper made him pause.

"Are we going to die?" came a child's voice somewhere from behind him. Sasuke immediately turned his head trying to find the questioner.

There, behind the debris of a shop he saw a kid and a mother cowering in fear. The protective mother looked Sasuke straight in the eyes almost challenging him to act. To prove to everyone that he was indeed a monster responsible for this.

"No." he breathed out. Either to himself or to the small family in front of him. Calming his chakra and taking his hand off the hilt he moved ahead without looking at the people surrounding him. As he was about to turn the corner his eyes caught the same kid who spoke before. Now instead of fear it was curiosity present on his face. He almost started to follow Sasuke when his mother pulled him back by his collar.

"Leave him be. Let him walk away."

* * *

His end destination was a small weapon shop at the end of the block. The last time he had been here he was on his way to destroy Konoha. Even in his fragile state of mind he remembered that the owner of the shop was a very sharp grandpa, not afraid to talk his mind out. 'Don't act stupid my boy!' he warned him while Sasuke stocked all the kunais and shurikens available. The warning fell on deaf ears though. Revenge was the only thing Sasuke could comprehend at that point. Remembering it now the Uchiha felt a strong sort of resentment towards himself. It was his rush that made him end up at where he is now. If only he used his mind more a lot of things could have been avoided.

 _Itachi could have stayed alive._

Sasuke shook his head trying to clean away the nagging pain and anger at himself.

The store came insight few minutes later. Maybe it was luck or maybe not but it was in one piece, completely untouched. When Sasuke tried to knock he was greeted by the familiar, though aged, face. The keeper was already opening the door before Sasuke's hand made contact.

"Back again my boy?" the man asked in his light manner. Sasuke knew it covered something else though. He stood at the door not letting him in. Waiting.

"I need a sharpening stone for my sword." the Uchiha confessed quietly.

The man's gaze fell on the hilt that was not covered by his cloak.

"So it seems." he replied slowly. "But do tell me, how did it go?"

The question came suddenly and Sasuke took a double take trying to see if the shop owner had something planning. But he seemed honest enough. Just standing there. But even with this Sasuke didn't see a need to answer. He knew that the keeper was a retired shinobi. And shinobi always keep up with information flow.

Always.

"If I had my way I wouldn't even let you hold a knife." the man continued calmly. "But I need money to feed my family." and only then he moved aside, opening up the entrance. "Come in."

The inside of the shop changed quite drastically. The shelfs that once held every weapon in existence were empty and with a thin layer of dust already visible there. The walls no longer looked spotless white, instead there were cracks and dents everywhere.

"When the war started shinobi came here and took everything they could carry." the man started explaining while opening drawer after drawer. A wry laugh escaped his thin, white lips, "They even took hammers! Can't imagine how hammers could be of use…" he then exclaimed 'aha!' at something and showed to Sasuke the object he was looking for. "They said that when the war will be over they will pay me back." The man looked at the stone and then at the Uchiha boy. "As you can deduct - they haven't." a steal look had settled on his face after this. "So tell me now my boy, why do you wanna sharpen your sword again?"

Sasuke didn't want to answer at first but something in the man's eyes made him reconsider. Words came easily to his lips after this.

"Shinobi can only be as sharp as their weapons."

"And?"

"I'm on my road to redemption I will need this to do right."

A slow hm escaped the man, "Do right you say… well, it's not like we can stop you, heard, though, that you were banished…?" He brought up his light brown eyes and stared deeply in the carol black ones.

"I chose banishment." The Uchiha corrected narrowing his eyes.

"Chose?" A surprised look crossed his face. "Interesting." he once again looked Sasuke straight in the eyes but this time he was searching for something there. Sasuke let him, somehow he felt that this was important.

"Alright here's your stone, take it, but I'm double charging you and that's final!" He handed the package to the boy and showed a small smile which looked more like a smirk.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at this but otherwise kept quiet.

 _If this is what he wants, then._

Opening his small waist pocket the Uchiha reached inside and took all the money he could find. With a confident move he put everything on the counter and turned to leave.

"Hey boy! The food is too expensive now. If you give me all of this what would you eat?" The slight note of wonder passed through his voice.

Without turning Sasuke just showed the same sharpening stone clenched securely in his hand. When a quiet sound of approval reached his ears the Uchiha understood - this is how he would start his redemption.

* * *

One thing Sasuke was enormously grateful for was Orochimaru's training in survival. If things were bad Sasuke was positive he could go without nutrition for few days. And water was rather easy to find in the wilderness. In the worst case he could hunt. But even with these ways out a lone voice inside his head told him that enough was enough. Half of his life was spent sleeping in caves and bathing in rivers, surely, now he could let himself wash and sleep normally! But for that he needed money. He gave away everything he had to the weapon master and the remains were only good for a piece of bread. As Sasuke walked around the village - ignoring the intense stares easily - he decided that his next destination would be a bank filial. Assuming those were even functional. As he looked around the destruction he doubted this greatly.

The whole hour had passed before the lone Uchiha finally found the old stock building but just as he feared - it was closed. Looking inside through the broken windows he only saw overturned tables and papers scattered all over the floor. Judging by the interior the bank would stay close for an extended period of time. Time, Sasuke did not wish to spend in this town.

Seeing no other choice the young adult changed his course and headed to the open market he saw on his track.

In order to get money out of his account he needed to find another village. To travel there Sasuke needed at least something to take with him as food. It made sense.

Unlike in the other parts of the gloomy settlement the market was alive and breathing with people running around and fowl hanging from the weak, barely holding together wooden arcs. Sasuke discarded the fresh game and opted for rice since it was universal in making food but as it turned out it was almost impossible to find it. And the ones he did find simply cost too much. At some point Sasuke thought that the cosmic prices were only for him alone (the stares never stopped coming his way) because he saw other people buying the product without any trouble. It took him one incidental glance at the buyer's eyes to see that he was wrong in his assumptions. Yes, the market was crowded but the people were poor.

The economy was fully destroyed.

And his budget was just the same.

* * *

The afternoon was spent in the shade of an oak tree in the local park. No people came here and the silence was comfortable.

Pleasant.

Few times a familiar nagging presence came close to him but as soon as it did it vanished. It was annoying.

Sasuke couldn't place why the ANBU was so annoying, _irritated._ Usually he just ignored such happenings but this time it was as if he already knew that person. The observer really _was_ familiar.

As much as Sasuke tried he couldn't place his thoughts in the right order so he decided to meditate. There was nothing for him to do anyways all the way until late evening.

He closed his eyes and relaxed.

This time it was so much more harder though. As Sasuke closed his eyes he felt a constant need to open them up and look around.

He was unsure of his surroundings.

Giving the name to this the boy tried to concentrate on his breathing while being very careful to listen to the happenings around him.

A small hum of the wind was the first thing he heard, it was followed by a great whoosh of a bird flying up. After that came a quieter sound of footsteps - someone was walking on the nearby road. Another hum reached his ears this time it sounded like wood was dragged over wood.

The village was being cleaned.

And then he felt a strong gust of wind hitting his face. Sasuke barely resisted the urge to cover his eyes with his hand but he tried his best to sit still. Unfortunately his meditation was doomed no matter how much he willed himself not to react because in the next moment a panicked scream was heard and all the calmness was sent to hell. Getting up Sasuke contemplated wherever he should interfere or not. The villagers probably thought he was the one to hurt someone. Deciding to go and see what happened instead of speculating the boy sped up.

What met his eyes made him stop and stare. A branch of the chakra tree came out of the ground (Sasuke clearly remembered that it was not there before) and already the white straps were slowly spreading around the new victim. The victim was a woman, already unconscious, who was laying on the ground, her still free hands clinging to some ordinary white bags. At the corner of his eyes Sasuke noticed that some people came out of their houses with a look of horror on their faces but none of them came to help.

Letting out a breath the Uchiha silently cursed his luck and then moved. In a second he appeared near the branch and with a trained movement he went for his sword. On the next instance the unnatural piece of wood was cut in pieces.

It took him less than 10 second in general. After letting out a smirk at the surprised faces of the spectators Sasuke turned to leave. But then a distant memory stopped him.

This one detail that made this godly tree so dangerous.

Impossibility to be destroyed by ordinary means!

As he turned around he was not that surprised when he saw that the places where he made the clean cut started to grow back together. In few more moments the white straps started to wrap around the woman once again.

"Fire." he heard someone breath out from behind him.

 _But fire would kill the victim,_ Sasuke thought fast not even bothering to look to see who spoke. The images of of the previous fire spots made him realise that such outcome was well known.

 _They were burning people alive together with the tree._ The realisation made him frown. _And they call me a killer!_

Getting back at the task at hand the Uchiha molded his chakra but instead of fire release he opted for lightning release. After the molding was done he let the chakra flow freely through his hand and into his sword. When the loud sound of birds clipping reached his ears he tried cutting the the tree again.

And this time it stayed put.

"Is she alive?" a small voice sounded somewhere behind him. Turning his head the Uchiha saw that a small crowd had already gathered. They were gaping at his unshielded sword with a badly hidden unease but the curiosity obviously was lot more stronger.

Stepping away he let the villagers check on the lady. Just in mere seconds someone let out a joyful "She is!" and a collective sigh was let out.

Sasuke cast one last look at the root confirming that it stopped regenerating and turned to leave.

The Uchiha emblem proudly visible for everyone to see.


	3. Chapter 3

That evening Sasuke had spent on a riverbank. Surviving was one thing but missing out on food when it was _right there_ was stupid.

Few kunai shots and a small fireball had done a good job of getting and cooking him the fish from the nearby stream. He was even more lucky to find that the fish was actually salmon. It looked as though the yearly migration was still in full swing. This little fact made Sasuke positive he would have all the nutrition one could ever need to survive.

After quelling his hunger and destroying all the traces of his presence, Sasuke was met with a hard choice: either set off now and cover at least three hours worth of distance to the other village or stay and see his plan to the end. At one side he felt that he had enough of the trading village, there was nothing more for him to see there, but on the other side he already had a course of actions planned. And Sasuke liked finishing everything he planned.

Sighing slowly the Uchiha realised that he was stuck for at least the whole night at this place.

In order to carry out his plan to the best of its possibilities and reach the result he was aiming for, Sasuke decided that he would start exactly there hours before midnight. So that left him with at least four more hours of nothing to do.

After thinking everything through and considering all available choices Sasuke tried to meditate once again. His failed attempt earlier today told him that he was far from successful in this part of his new regime.

Without the ever present noise of humans and just nature around him Sasuke felt lot more calmer.

This time he was finally successful in his attempt to empty his mind. The other thing though, that stood out the most to Sasuke while he sat there relaxed, was his energy resources. It came as a shock when Sasuke felt just _how_ much of his energy was used to simply keep his emotions in check. More importantly - his memories and nightmares. Before his imprisonment Sasuke always locked those at the farthest corner of his mind keeping them at bay until his own mind fought back. When that happened the nightmares attacked with double force, sometimes waking him up in the middle of the night because of his own screams... But him running around chasing after Itachi and then after Danzo and so on… that had kept him busy enough. And dreams were only getting in his way.

But when he was submitted to the prison cell...

First weeks were the worst. He was completely at the mercy of his mind while his body was ineffective and his conscience had free reign of torturing him on and on and on…

Even though he never admitted this but having those visits from Naruto and Sakura at points were worth more than they could ever imagine!

Sasuke had to learn to cope. And he sort of succeeded. Now instead of locking away his past he tried to embrace it. To take power from it. Just like Naruto did. Unfortunately it proved to be more complicated than he initially thought.

Now, when he felt more or less calm, and, in a way, learned to analyze his emotions instead of locking them, that free energy was circulating through his body making him feel _charged._ He found himself enjoying that feeling a lot.

Without even noticing the Uchiha had spend almost two hours just sitting there and breathing. He would probably sit more if it wasn't for this one annoying problem - he needed to take a leak.

Sometimes Sasuke wished he was not born as a human being. And at other times he was annoyed that humans were so _imperfect._

With an eye twitch like no other the lone Uchiha went to the nearest bush already trying to think of other things he might do, since meditation was once again cut short.

The feeling of being charged was still there so after the nature's call Sasuke did the next best thing.

He trained.

Sword art was complicated and ever evolving. Even with two hands it was impossible to learn all there is to it.

And Sasuke had only one arm left. That limited him by half.

Limited - maybe, but never hopeless. With a strong resolve Sasuke dived into the beginnings of sword fighting.

 _Years,_ he thought absentmindedly, _it will take years to master this again._

And years he had.

The Katas were familiar, with his perfect memory there were little chances that he would ever forget them.

There was one other significant problem though - his balance was horrible. Who knew losing an arm would make a person so unstable even in simple jumps. After discovering this Sasuke pushed his sword away almost violently.

 _Forget the sword I need to learn how to fight again._

The revelation was heavy. Letting out a short breath Sasuke decided to start with simple backflips.

He failed and fell right on his back.

"Shit.." the black haired boy growled, feeling like he was just embarrassed in front of his whole clan. Sasuke tried hard to let go of that feeling. "Again." he ended up saying out loud and stood up.

On his second try he did manage to land on his feet but the absence of a limb made him stumble and fall down to his left side.

He blamed this stiffness on Konoha. If he wasn't locked up his skills would have never decreased this low! Getting up Sasuke realised that sword training would really have to wait. He needed to learn how to be a ninja again! So he trained in basics until it was dark and well in the night. And only when the moon showed up did Sasuke stop.

Next on his to do list was the road back to the village which didn't take a long time. In few minutes he was once again near the wall. The obvious question of why even build this wall if all the trouble was inside Sasuke ignored with ease. He was on his way to redemption and getting himself mixed in someone else's business was far from what he desired.

He knew how the system worked. He knew those people needed money. And with this he could not help.

 _But I can do something else,_ Sasuke thought as he jumped over the wall into the empty city.

 _I will be a ninja for them._

His sharingan came to life automatically making the world clearer and more detailed. The tree roots came to sight almost immediately after that. They were everywhere - under the ground, in the buildings, on the streets... All of them charged with the energy of people being caught off guard and digested for more energy.

 _A vicious circle._

He looked around to see if there were people out. Just as he planned - they were not. But they were also not asleep yet.

 _Perfect._

The center of the village was his first and main stop and it stayed exactly as he saw during the day. After a detailed look with both of his eyes Sasuke deduced that the root there really was the main one. It was from it that all the other branches began. Most went underground only to come up on the other side of the village, catching people by surprise and then trapping them. Others just went up for the sky almost as trees. _Almost._

 _This time there's no one around to stop me._

With his sword out and chakra perfectly molded Sasuke aimed for the root with no mercy. Since it was too wide for his sword the Uchiha decided to go about it as woodsman did. He made a V shaped cut at the base of the tree root and another cut on the parallel side just a bit higher from the previous one. His sword was enhanced with lightning to stop the regeneration process. After all of this was done the boy jumped as high as he could without using more chakra and pushed with his legs disturbing the balance and making the root crumble down.

What happened next also was part of his plan.

The roots which were hidden below the ground for all this time suddenly shot up all aimed at him. He indeed was a delicious price with his almost unlimited chakra resources, but he was Sasuke Uchiha. Some godly tree was not something he could lose to.

Chidori Nagashi appeared around him and acted as a shield while he landed back on the ground. The land didn't end up good enough _again_ and Sasuke stumbled to his left side. He quickly used his sword as an improvised crutch and kept his feet firmly on the ground.

After a second of thinking Sasuke leapt forward to the main root again with a perfect chidori already summoned. Dodging the crazy tree was harder now but nothing could hinder the Uchiha. In a span of a millisecond the boy touched the root and released the chidori in one strong current after that he dodged away to the safe distance.

A quick look around confirmed Sasuke's assumption - some people heard the commotion and already came out to sew what it was.

 _Just in time to witness the end._

Truly, it was the end of Kaguya's chakra tree root. It trashed like an octopus brought out of the water for few seconds and then crumbled down into ashes.

A victorious smirk appeared on the boys face.

His plan was successful.

Slowly he shielded his sword and turned to leave showing off his family crest to all those observers around.

 _They might judge me by my past but soon the word will spread and people will know of my new path._

 _That's what you wanted Naruto, right?_


	4. Chapter 4

When Sasuke was on the road again he felt a bit lost at what to do next.

In theory, if one village was suffering because of the roots than many others could suffer the same fate at this very same moment.

Yet it wasn't his job to cut down trees.

The complete destruction of the chakra root was the first thing the five great nations were supposed to do after the war had ended.

Months had passed since that but it looked like no one even started doing the cleanup.

Then again… what _was_ he supposed to do on his journey?

He did have in his plans to visit the battlefield and few other places now that he was free to roam around but that would take no more than a month to complete.

He had years.

After some long hours of trying to contemplate this Sasuke decided that if he sees a village with such problem in his travels he would help. But he will not put this as his top priority.

He had other things to do. Figuring exactly what he was supposed to do was one of them.

The problem he had with his nonexistent budget still stood as most important. If he wanted to travel further than the known roads (and he indeed wanted) then he needed provision. The boy understood that hunting would only last him this much and not all regions were fertile enough for this. Yes, getting a sufficient amount of Riyo on his hands was a top priority.

Sasuke looked around the terrain and tried to understand his general position.

The Uchiha was only two days away from Konoha and he left the trading village just this morning. The trading village had no working bank filial while Konoha was out of his list in general, all this pushed him back a lot. Sasuke tried to remember if there were any other big enough villages close by but as strange as it was to realise - he could not remember any. He was poking in the dark.

 _Could have been worse,_ he concluded with a frown.

So happened that things did became worse by the time noon came. Heavy rain clouds, almost black in color, started to gather on the horizon promising to unleash rain strong enough to wash away a small mountain. Sasuke hoped that the rain would pass his region and save him the trouble.

Plus, he was becoming hungry.

 _I still have time,_ he thought and aimed downhill, away from the main road in hopes to find a stream. _And possibly some prey._

His hopes were in vain though. There were no trails of any animals in the perimeter and most importantly - no river. It made sense, since animals tended to stay near water sources most of the time and here there was none...

Sighing in frustration Sasuke continued to walk forward without looking back. This was what he had chosen after all.

Hours passed with nothing happening around him. The same terrain of countless trees was everything he could see for miles and miles around. Eventually Sasuke found himself being...bored. The revelation was so sudden the boy had to pause in his walking.

Bored.

He was bored. The boy looked at his hand as if it had all the answers but the limb stayed traitorously quiet.

His mind took him back to his imprisonment. Back then he had nothing but four walls and complete darkness around him but he was never bored. And now he had the whole world to himself and yet here he was...

A short memory flashed before his eyes:

" _Man, how can you stand this?" a certain blond head asked ridiculously while looking around the dimly lit room. "It's so boring here! And you can't even get Ramen..."_

The Uchiha said nothing then, listening to the rant with a stoic face. He would never admit that the visits he received kept him as preoccupied as one could possibly need while in prison.

Now however there were no loud blond's around to keep him occupied.

When Naruto started talking about the possibility of Sasuke being released and how the travels he could do would help the future Hokage the Uchiha couldn't help but _desire_ that. He almost saw the world as the blond showed him.

Naruto really knew how to paint a pretty picture and Sasuke… Sasuke wanted to follow it.

However, the Uzumaki was no longer here to draw out his world.

The Uchiha decided to embrace his current feelings.

Yes, he would be alone but the friendship Naruto had offered would help him in his way.

With this the boredom he felt before vanished. Leaving only the peaceful observance.

* * *

By evening the Uchiha was certain of one thing - the storm he saw midday would _not_ pass him by.

Strong wind was already trying to rip away his cloak and pushed hair in his mismatched eyes making them tear up.

A scowl automatically appeared on his face as he imagined the future downpour. He needed a cave. And fast.

Looking around Sasuke saw only more trees all around him. One tall and sturdy oak was a good observing spot Sasuke decided absentmindedly. With a strong push the boy climbed up the tree easily ignoring the cutting wind.

He trusted in his chakra control.

After climbing on the upper branch he looked around hoping to see if at least one mountain was close by.

He did succeed in spotting a mountain. But it was so far away that even with chakra enhanced speed he would not make it in time.

He felt his left eye twitch. The Rinnegan.

An idea appeared in his head. For a slight moment Sasuke thought about using his ocular power to flicker himself closer to the mountain and hopefully some cave. But the notion was short lived.

 _No._ He stubbornly thought.

"I will bear everything without the help of that old man." his words, though quiet and completely lost in the wind, were full of meaning. The will to prove himself was far more superior than anything else.

Sasuke glanced at the clouds and deducted that he still had few minutes before the rain started.

Jumping down in one swift move the boy couldn't help but notice that his balance already improved, even though just slightly, that managed to put a small smirk on his face. With the mood improved Sasuke started to look around for a small hill. If he could secure his tent on a higher altitude then he could avoid being washed away. A quick scan showed him just the spot. On the cleaning visible from his position there was a formation of rocks that was flat and high enough to serve as a good place for a tent.

Without wasting any seconds Sasuke jogged to the formation and started to unpack.

The tent came out easily enough and Sasuke hoped that it really was waterproof just as the cover said.

The next step was to set it up.

Light drizzle has already started when Sasuke took out the metal core.

What happened next made the Uchiha swear so profoundly others would cover their ears.

He needed his other arm in order to put the skeleton together.

He didn't have it.

More curses followed after the discovery. Of course it wild be hard to set up a tent with one hand! Sasuke remembered how painful it was to learn to set it up even with two hands in his disposal.

And now...

More drizzle hit his cloak making it heavier and harder to move in. The said drizzle turned into a downpour seconds later.

"Fuck." the Uchiha cursed once again and decided to leave it be. Putting the metal structure in his bag he took the tent cover itself and jumped on a tree bench thick enough to hold him for the rest of night.

Using the thin ropes that were sticking out of the tent Sasuke secured the cloth on the upper tree branches, making an improvised cover, and laid the rest below him so that he was sitting on a dry material instead of the wet tree. After he made sure that the improvised construction won't fall off together with him he took out his sleeping back and covered his legs with it.

The end result was sufficient enough.

At least he was mostly dry.

 _The key word is mostly._ Sasuke thought bitterly and reached again for his bag - this time to take a towel and dry out his wet locks.

The last thing he needed in his travels was a cold.

Wind howled like a crazy demon making Sasuke shiver few times. But there was nothing he could do at this point.

He had to endure.

A small fragment of his childhood came forward in his mind.

" _Always remember this," a young and a serious looking Iruka spoke loudly to the whole class. "Nature never does what we expect it to do. If you think living outside of the cover of your home is easy, well, you are wrong. Even a regular rain will make you wet, sick and vulnerable. If you won't find or make a good cover you will be at a disadvantage." a booing sound came from the first row._

" _No freaking way!" a blond child shouted. "Ninjas are way too cool to be beaten by some rain!"_

 _Immediately an angry retort was heard from the teacher._

" _We are still humans Naruto! And we get sick just the same as everyone else unless…"_

 _The last part got the boys attention. And not just his - the whole class went quiet and waited for the great secret to come out._

" _Unless you learn how to circulate your chakra through your body and keep your temperature steady."_

Sasuke was grateful for this memory and reached for his chakra, more than ready to get warmer.

He didn't even notice how a simple concentration turned into a deep meditation and after that - into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

He woke up to the sound of rustling leaves and a sunray heating up his face. The boy listened closely without opening his eyes trying to find the origin of the rustling.

 _Above._ He heard a rustling right on the roof of his makeshift camp.

It moved and disappeared.

Something landed on his leg making the Uchiha finally open his eyes in sheer surprise.

 _The hell…_

In his sleeping daze he didn't make out the bird at first and pushed with his legs to throw it away.

But it just flapped it's wings and landed on his roof again.

"Annoying." was the first word that left his mouth.

In answer he heard a long whistle. The bird begun to sing it's song, welcoming the new day. It was...calming.

After waking up fully Sasuke looked around himself and most importantly below himself.

The tent held. The ropes got untangled in some places but other than that everything stayed the same. He also didn't slide down which was something he actually expected to happen.

 _When did I fall asleep?_ He wondered while unwrapping his tent from the tree. The question was of course unanswered. He also felt his neck screaming profanities at him for sleeping in such a horrible position but that was easy to fix with a bit of stretching.

That's what he did after getting down to the ground.

Sasuke's muscles ached and burned while he performed some basic Katas. Letting his bag and sword rest aside his small stretching escalated to a full blown training session in mere minutes.

Some two hours and a lot of sweat later he deemed himself agile enough and went back to gathering his things.

The cloth of the tent was lying on the ground ropes sticking out in all directions and the metal core was halfway out of his backpack just as he'd left them yesterday.

Placing everything back together looked like the most boring thing to do in the morning but the Uchiha was a man of principals and order.

So he packed everything just as neatly as it was in his first day. The only problem was that the tent itself was quite wet.

 _Letting it lay on the wet ground - not a good idea._

Letting out a sigh the boy hopped for some village to appear soon.

More than anything he wanted to take a shower.


	5. Chapter 5

He didn't eat for almost 34 hours now.

He also had a slight headache because of his more than uncomfortable night.

But nothing deterred the Uchiha as he strode through the wet forest, easily avoiding fallen trees and mud holes. However the absence of food did took its toll even though just a slight one - he felt fatigued. Sasuke knew he needed to find a stream or hunt down some prey or else he'd risk becoming weak.

And being weak meant being dead.

He knew that, but it looked like the whole animal population disappeared completely. _Probably because of the storm_. So he opted for fish again.

The mountain he saw last evening looked promising enough so Sasuke set up towards it.

It didn't take as long as he initially thought, it was late morning when he finally found a stream.

Even from afar Sasuke could hear the loud sound of the fast current. It didn't bother him at first but when he came closer he saw that the river was overflooded, muddy and it even had small, unrooted trees floating in its waters from time to time. It was literally impossible to see anything. The notion of throwing kunai and losing it because of the fast current just to catch, presumably, some fish - appeared to be...pointless.

Sasuke stood there watching as the water went by.

What was he supposed to do next? There were no villages around, no fish and no prey. Sasuke remembered how in the academy they learned about mushrooms as a form of survival but the knowledge was so faded out and incomplete he was sure he'd get all the wrong ones.

Out of sheer principle.

For some reason Sasuke thought of Sakura. She would definitely know what mushrooms were edible and not. With that enciclopedia brain of hers.

A sigh escaped his lips as he cataloged one more thing he needed to learn in order to survive.

Feint, almost unhearable footsteps to his left interrupted Sasuke's lonely brooding. They were so sudden the Uchiha almost jumped in place.

 _People? Here?_ The boy thought surprised as he quickly followed the sound. He dared to hope for a village.

A minute later he closed on an older man walking all alone in the middle of the woods. He looked to be around forty with dark brown hair and light grey eyes. The man carried a bow and a bag of arrows over his shoulders, there were also fingerless gloves on each of his hands. _A sign of a trained archer._ The guess was proved right when he saw the man's posture. His body was very well build with good amount of muscles showing. _Definitely trained_.

"Come out whoever is there!" the hunter said evenly just few seconds after Sasuke saw him. His voice rang among the trees clearly and his eyes sparked with some hidden power as he looked around the woods.

 _Did the hunter sense me?.._

Seeing that he was found Sasuke stepped out of his observing place and into the open, he then decided not to beat around the bush and asked bluntly:

"Are there any villages near?"

The man's eyes went wide when he saw the newcomer. Sasuke noticed how the archer's hand automatically went for his bow though it stopped before he could reach it.

"Villages you say?" he asked in wonder. Eyes still wide. "You must be lost, the closest village is at least three days away from here."

"I am not lost." the boy scoffed but right after those words left his mouth his stomach produced such a loud, growling sound his carefully aloof attitude cracked into million of tiny pieces.

"Lost, hungry and with an attitude!" the man deadpanned and crossed his hands over his chest. "I guess it runs in the family." he then said offhandedly, too carefree to make it an insult.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed at this phrasing but the brown haired elder just shrugged it off and started laughing rather loud while pointing his finger at Sasuke's chest. "You're an Uchiha of course! I can tell your kind from miles away! I take it you are Sasuke?"

"Sasuke Uchiha." the boy replied stoically.

"The last survival yeah, yeah I know." the hunter finally shook off his initial surprise and came closer to the Uchiha. "Monoke Kin at your service." he looked over the tall boy one more time before turning around and walking off. "Come on now, if we waste any more time the deer will all get on with their lives and leave us hungry." Monoke paused for a bit and then added: "Well, hungrier."

Both man set off towards east, away from the river.

At first Sasuke didn't know why he followed. He was curious of the stranger at first, yes. But seeing that in the whole hour their walking didn't led them anywhere Sasuke started to question his actions.

"Aren't prey supposed to be near water sources?"

"Usually yes," the elder answered easily. "But not during the heavy storms. They tend to avoid rivers at such times, too afraid of the potential flood, and move to the higher ground." The Uchiha cataloged the information for the future use while Monoke continued. "And since I know this forest…" he didn't elaborate just smiled over his shoulder.

"Where's the closest village?" the boy asked again.

"Too far off for you to go there without food. You're stuck with me - face it."

Hearing this Sasuke decided he had enough and turned around to walk away.

"Hey!" Monoke suddenly whispered and yanked Sasuke on his sleeve before he could turn around. "Get down!"

Thanks to his ninja instincts the Uchiha did just that. A second later he saw a rabbit coming out of the bushes, its fur was already closer to being white which made Sasuke remember about the closeness of the winter. He needed provision... Sasuke was brought back to reality when he saw the archer reaching for his bow. As much as the Uchiha wanted to witness Monoke in action he just couldn't let the potential food escape because of slowness. With a swift move Sasuke took out a kunai and threw it at the rabbits neck. The kill was instant and painless. Clean.

"Tch!" The hunter scowled angrily. "Why did you do that?" he questioned as he neared the dead body.

"I saved time." Sasuke replied evenly. What was the difference anyways…?

The man scowled again. "There's a difference between a kunai and a bow." nothing else was said after that.

Sasuke stared blankly in return.

"Fine, I'll ignore it. For now." Monoke took out the bloodied kunai and threw it back to Sasuke. After that he took out a pocket knife and started to cut the still warm animal. "But next time watch instead of acting on your own. You won't learn otherwise."

"I don't need to learn this."

"If you say that now at your age then you are more lost than ever." Monoke Kin looked the Uchiha straight in the eyes. "The strongest people are those who are always ready to learn something new and keep an open mind. You might think you know everything but in reality you might as well know nothing. And that is a weakness."

Sasuke wanted to leave right away, he was tired of being shown around by people. He was shown around for almost all his life! Enough was enough. But as the Uchiha looked at the slow work of the hunter he couldn't help but feel the desire to stay. The way Monoke spoke was familiar. He almost sounded like...Itachi. Calm but strong at the same time.

Strong because he was sure of his knowledge.

Sasuke frowned at the overall situation but decided to calm down.

Naruto would want him to learn.

"What's the difference between a kunai and an arrow?" he asked while coming closer.

Monoke kept quiet for a bit but eventually started talking. He told Sasuke about how the ninja tools were mostly all filled with bacteria and how they affected the dead body making it decay faster. What different sicknesses he could catch just because of such carelessness. How his arrows were all disinfected and hence how he could carry and eat the prey without any fear for his health.

Sasuke listened with a huge interest. This was not something he ever thought much about.

"I didn't know that." he admitted earnestly.

"Obviously." the brown haired man sighed. "Take the rabbit." he handed the skinned animal to the Uchiha and started to walk again.

This time Sasuke didn't question Monoke Kin. He followed and observed.

Itachi would have wanted this.

Naruto would have wanted this.

In thirty more minutes they found another rabbit cautiously coming out of the small hole between the bushes.

"Don't interfere." Was the only thing uttered. And so Sasuke didn't. He watched as the hunter slowly took out one of his arrows and pulled the string. For a moment Sasuke thought Monoke would spend a while to calm his breath and aim (the boy knew the process needed for a successful bow shot) but the man didn't do any of that. He pulled the string and released it a second later.

He was fast!

The kill was also clean - right at the neck. After it Monoke repeated the skinning and soon handed another rabbit to Sasuke.

Something was...off.

"You said there were deer around." the Uchiha commented calmly.

The smile was back to the man's face "Yes, yes they are!" together with a strange glint to his eyes. "You carry those two and let's go."

And they set off.

At some point Sasuke started to question his actions again. Here he was following a complete stranger around the woods. The Uchiha was sort of hunting but he was not sure if the prey even belonged to him… if he would be able to eat. At this very moment his stomach growled again.

"Boy, you really are hungry!" came Monokes comment almost immediately after.

"Hm." Sasuke didn't say anything more. What was the need? Maybe going with the flow was smarter… he didn't know.

"Don't worry I have lots of food in my humble home. But we have to catch the trail first and the deer itself obviously. Winter is coming and I still need to smoke it."

"Smoke it?"

"Yes, Sasuke, otherwise I will not be able to store it."

Sasuke ate smoked meat before, how could he not? But the process always seemed so complicated he thought only specialized people could do it with meat. That also explained the ever high price for it, though, if this Monoke also knew how to do this...all the more reasons to endure.

For one more hour both man tried to look for trails by walking almost in circles but luck was not on their side.

"Weird." and "Very peculiar." was everything the brown haired man said from time to time. He was more confused than anything as he stared at the ground. And that made Sasuke confused as well.

"What it is?"

But no answer came just more unsure glances and weird comments.

Sasuke looked around trying to see what the hunter was meaning by weird.

They were in a dense forest mostly consisting of the ever present oak trees. There were bushes here and there, Sasuke could even make out some rabbit holes in between but since their hunt was for some deer…

"Look." came a quiet voice.

Coming closer the Uchiha observed the ground pointed out by the archer. At first sight everything was alright, nothing out of the ordinary.

"What am I looking at?" came his deep voice.

"Absolutely nothing." the archer quickly retorted. "But now look here!" And he pointed to the lower branches. There were footprints on the moss covering the trunk and the branches.

Ninjas were tree walking here.

 _Ninjas._

Most likely his babysitters...

Sasuke frowned immediately. "Someone was here not long ago."

Monoke shook his head in agreement. "And they scared all the deer away unfortunately. How very untimely. Come on," the man said dejectedly. "let's go back. I'm inviting you in." He then turned around and walked in the general direction of the river again. "Those two should be enough for a good dinner at least."

The road to the river was a straight one this time so it didn't take a lot of time before they saw the muddy water. Sasuke was about to ask if there were any bridges near so they could cross but the hunter had surprised him once again.

Monoke Kin had continued to walk straight on. He went to the water put one foot on top of the current then the other one and in a seconds time he was strolling to the other side of the river.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes.

"So you _are_ a ninja." he calmly commented and followed along.

The hunter turned around and lifted his eyebrow. "How did you know?"

"Your posture and acting. The way you handled the kunai earlier and also _sensed_ me from the very beginning. Now you simply confirmed it."

"I can't say I was hiding it either." the man smirked. Both had reached the opposite side now. "So what of it?"

Sasuke thought hard on this but came to the conclusion that this knowledge changed nothing. Monoke had said he had food and Sasuke was hungry. That was about it. Wherever he was a ninja or not was just a chosen lifestyle. Though he was curious what was a ninja doing in the middle of the woods. Days away from any villages.

 _Maybe I'll find out soon._

 _Or maybe not._


	6. Chapter 6

After they crossed the river both men entered the woods once again. Sasuke, being naturally observant, immediately noticed how different everything was here. Even though it still was the wilderness this part of the forest looked almost lived in. The ground had no grass (the sign that someone walked through here a lot) and the trees were not as dense as before. There were even markings here and there on those trees which looked as if someone was throwing kunai knifes at them. It was either the evidence of a past fight or someone was practicing. Sasuke was more sure of the later.

Was it Monoke? He did prove that he was a ninja. But deep down Sasuke had his doubts. Monoke was an archer and judging by his earlier remarks he appeared to dislike kunais a lot.

So there was someone else.

In the end Sasuke decided to wait and see. It looked as though patience was another value he would end up learning while traveling. Not at all that bad considering that it was impatience that brought him a lot of troubles in the first place.

Another growl escaped his upset stomach after which the world before him disappeared for a bit. Immediately stopping and closing his eyes the Uchiha tried to control his breathing. The prison with its regular eating hours had made him week. In more ways than he initially thought.

After calming his body Sasuke opened his eyes only to find the old mans questioning gaze locked solemnly on him.

"When was the last time you ate?"

"A while back." the teen ended up confessing and moved forward.

They went back to their thoughts after that short dialog but the archer had increased his speed.

And Sasuke noticed it straight away.

The deeper they went the more spread out the trees became until eventually they gave away and revealed a spacy clearing. One side was fenced and crops were still growing there. When Sasuke came closer he saw that it was corn and cabbages. The other parts also had something growing but the Uchiha couldn't identify what it was. It just looked like green grass to him.

On the other side of the specious clearing stood a small house, almost invisible because of its blending color.

Quite honestly Sasuke expected Monoke to live in some sort of bachelor's pit but instead before him was a very well kept family house. It had two floors, a very neat garden and in general looked quite modern with big windows and fresh paint. The house was as green as the forest around it and if he wasn't led to this place by the archer himself Sasuke probably wouldn't have saw it.

Probably.

Or maybe he would, but he was far from being an ordinary human taking a stroll around the woods. Others, of course, had lesser chances of stumbling upon this little clearing.

Still. What was such a house doing in the middle of the woods?

Sasukes thoughts must have been quite obvious because a second later Monoke had asked the same thing Sasuke had thought of in the space of his own mind.

"What, you thought that I'd be living in some kind of a hole?" came his amused voice.

Sasuke didn't bother answering to this question he just stood there and waited. Plus... he really did expected that. Not that he would confess of course.

They held each other's gaze for a second more before the man laughed it off.

"Alright, alright let's go and feed you."

They entered through the main door and immediately Sasukes nose was hit with the aroma of boiled meat and fried rice together with a noise of two kids bickering. For a second the Uchiha played with the idea that he had finally lost his mind with how much he thought of food lately. The weird thought was pushed away when he heard the archer speak again.

"You are a lucky man aren't you? It looks like my family had just started their midday lunch! And we are just in time to join them!" the man went quiet but not before letting out a short laugh at something. He then bent down and started to take his sandals off. Sasuke followed his lead and did the same. As he did so he noticed that the noise had stopped which meant the members of the house had finally noticed their entrance.

After the two passed the narrow corridor they were greeted with a wide, joined room. One side looked like a guest room with a couch and a big, already served, table while the other side appeared to be kitchen like. The boy looked twice before confirming that it was indeed a kitchen, just a very peculiar one.

His eyes went back to the table.

There were three people sitting there. A woman who surprisingly didn't look any older than thirty and two kids. A tall girl around sixteen or seventeen who was frowning at something and what appeared to be her younger brother who, unlike his relative, was smiling from ear to ear. He looked around seven. All of them stopped in the middle of their meal and looked attentively at the newcomer.

Some with bluntly shown interest others with a little unease.

Sasuke kept quiet and waited for the archer to speak first. He turned his head and cast a short glance at the said man but Monoke just stood there with a smirk, pretty obviously making him understand that he was on his own.

Fortunately for Sasuke the silence was broken by the mistress of the house just before the things became awkward.

"Hello there!" she smiled kindly and nodded to Monoke. "Who's our guest, dear?"

"Sasuke Uchiha." Sasuke said evenly, not letting the archer speak, this time willingly. Somehow he had a feeling the man would either embarrass him or start talking some made out stories. Or worse - real stories of his past.

The Uchiha had a feeling the archer knew them.

"Yes, the one and only." the older man confirmed. He smirked once again and finally moved ahead.

He smirked a lot that Monoke.

As he did so he took from Sasuke the two rabbits they have killed earlier and disappeared in the near corridor.

"Please give him something to eat!" came his quiet voice after he had gone from view.

Authoritative. But kind.

A frown had found its way onto the boys face. Somehow he ended up disliking this situation quite a lot. He looked patiently at the unsure woman before him, it was obvious the family didn't have a lot of guests in their house by the way they acted. Fortunately the awkward situation was made less so when the older child, a girl named Kani as Sasuke later found out, got up and marched to him. She let out a small breath before looking up to him and finally speaking:

"Mom doesn't like ninjas," the girl explained offhandedly and with a quite a pointing look at the older woman, "You can sit here." she said shortly and directed to the empty chair beside hers. Without waiting for some kind of response she grabbed his empty left sleeve and guided him closer to the table. "Sit. Eat." that was about everything Sasuke had heard from her. The same girl had took a plate together with some utensils and put them in front of him, she then looked him straight in the eyes and waited without blinking. But Sasuke still didn't move which made the teen furrow her eyebrows. She looked like a child who couldn't solve a puzzle. An obvious question of 'Why aren't you eating?' written all over her face.

This made Sasuke even more confused.

Why was he here again?...

A quiet grunt from his stomach had answered this question rather well.

The girl must have took after her father because suddenly, without uttering a single word, she started to serve him food. First came the rise then some meat and then even some vegetables! Everything was so unusual that the Uchiha couldn't even understand what to do and how to react.

This is what family did.

"Kani, maybe you're suppose to feed him?" The younger boy finally spoke not without the air of amusement in his voice.

"Don't say nonsense, Takeo." the same girl answered while rolling her eyes.

"Well, ninjas are... peculiar…" the older woman spoke out, eyes glued on Sasuke with something akin to mistrust behind them. The phrase made the younger female let out almost a devastating sigh. "Moom will you stop with that?" she rolled her eyes and turned to the Uchiha once again. "Why aren't you eating? The food's not poisoned." the word food got Sasukes attention.

Finally the young adult had moved his eyes from the three siblings to the full plate in front of him. Should he?

An exclamation made him look up again. "Ninjas have to be strong!" Takeo shouted confidently and quite unexpectedly also. He made a comical salute and then went back to devouring the food with a big grin on his face.

Kani cast one last look at Sasuke and then also went back to eating. She decided to let her dad deal with the stranger.

"There's no way of talking you two out of it as I see." the woman whispered dejectedly, obviously returning to the previous conversation they had before they were interrupted by the incomers. "I guess it's expected since we do live in a land of ninjas."

Land of ninjas? Sasukes brain tried to analyze everything he heard from the family before him, especially the older woman. The only conclusion he could come up with was that the mother was not from here. A foreigner married to a ninja archer. She didn't even look like most of the people in the five great nations. Her face was sculptured very profoundly. Every detail stood out so much it was as if someone worked days and nights just to show them off. Starting with the nose that for some reason had a small hump in the middle and up to her cheekbones that were just way too thin making her face look very angular and even edgy. And the way she held herself...Definitely a foreigner. With children, Sasuke added in his mind as he gazed at the frowning teens. Almost immediately the Uchiha remembered the cut trees in the nearby forest. So it was them.

Meanwhile both kids voiced their answer with a well practiced 'No' which earned an even sadder face from the woman.

Weird family.

Sasuke still didn't touch his food. As much as he wanted to eat and as much as his brain screamed for him to stop being stupid - he couldn't. His mother had raised him better than that. And he wowed to respect that throughout all of his life.

The Uchiha decided to wait for the archer to come back since he was his guest.

The good part was that Monoke didn't get lost on the path of life and entered the room just few minutes after everyone became quiet.

The man looked at Sasuke's full plate as he walked in and raised an eyebrow. "No appetite?" he joked and sat down on the opposite side of the table. In his hands Sasuke saw another plate and chopsticks.

Kani must have given me his utensils.

Without any pointless talk the archer started eating nodding to Sasuke one last time urging him to do the same.

And Sasuke did. The hunger was so strong by now that he felt like vomiting at the sight of food. He knew that it was not a good sign. He tried to pick the meat first since it had the proteins he so much needed. After few gulps his earlier nausea had passed and the black haired boy started to consume the food with such vigor that he didn't even notice the amused smiles on all of the archer's family.

* * *

"So!" Monoke started after the meal was finished and the table was cleaned. The kids have ran off somewhere without even saying proper goodbyes and the wife had excused herself and went upstairs leaving Monoke once again with the guest.

"So I was thinking... a favor for a favor!" he said excitedly and even robbed his hands together while showcasing some perfectly white teeth. In this moment the archer reminded Sasuke of a certain Suigetsu. The smirk didn't look as evil though.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow showing that he was listening. He really did own the man for feeding him.

Before the said old man could speak a quiet music had filled the house making Sasuke turn his head trying to find the source of it.

It was...calming.

But strangely unknown.

"As I was saying," Monoke continued. "I need some firewood for the winter. Since I'm no swordsman cutting down trees is rather difficult… but here you are! Perfectly ready and with a sword!" the brown eyes had focused on Sasuke's black ones and then he added a bit more seriously. "And you should be careful as well," he said quietly. "This winter will be a hard one."

Nothing in this world is easy the Uchiha wanted to respond but then decided against it.

"I'll help." Sasuke answered slowly. This was an easy request and it would do good for his redemption journey. "But after that I will leave." he said straight on. As much as he was grateful to the man the Uchiha had a long road before him so he did not want to waste much time. "We should go right now." after saying this the boy got up and started to move towards the door.

"Don't you want to rest for a bit?" Monoke asked curiously, confused at such obvious rush.

"You know of my past." Sasuke said evenly. "Aren't you afraid?" the smirk came to his lips a little too easy. And somehow the Uchiha knew that it looked more menacing than ever. Though, it was actually not what he intended…

The boy turned around and walked on again. Sasuke could not accept requests like that. Not yet. Not until his sins were at least half paid for.

"As you wish." the archer sighed understandingly. "But too bad," he carried on and also went for the entrance door. "We have a lot of interesting stories to tell. For example…" Monoke paused while getting his shoes on and loudly informing that he was leaving.

Sasuke did not say his goodbyes to the other occupies of the house but he was sure Monoke would do it for him later on. They were heading back to the woods when the man continued.

"For example a story of the lands far away from here. So far actually that people there don't even know we exist!" Sasuke turned to look at the archer after hearing such claim.

Now that was interesting.

Sasuke felt a tiny push in his chest.

That was… excitement.

"And?" he could help but ask while coming closer to the old but dead oak. Everything was oaks here the Uchiha mused, but as long as it served it's porpoise...

"And the rest you'll here after you come back to visit some more."

The phrase was so sudden Sasuke almost let go of his drawn sword.

"What?" the boy couldn't help but ask. Deeply confused.

Monoke shrugged and nodded to the weapon urging Sasuke to continue and cut the tree. "Let's just say I knew your brother.."

This time even a louder 'What' escaped the Uchiha.

"Don't be so surprised lad." the archer rolled his eyes at the boys behaviour. "I lived and worked at Konoha for many years before deciding that the ninjalifestyle was just not up for my liking. Itachi was the same. He disliked the ninja system even more than I did, especially after the Third Shinobi War."

Sasuke listened with the air of confusement and even a little jealousy. Itachi never had time for him and yet he somehow managed to be known by so many… "He passed by our house many times before. Heck, he even helped building some parts of it that good lad." a sad sigh escaped the man as he looked up to the sky. It was an early afternoon and the sun danced joyfully in between the green leaves casting small shadows over the aging man. "I lost hope for the humans you see - come on cut the tree here one more time - and, wanna know why?"

Sasuke took few more swings before the tree in front of him fell down and then looked at the archer. Waiting.

"Because humans are always the same." a small pause stretched between the two before Monoke added, "No matter where they are from."

* * *

Hello readers!

First of all a big Thank You for reading Sasukes Path to Redemption! To all of you!

Now that I passed the beginning of this story I need your help!

I'm calling to all those who always wondered: what in the world did Sasuke do while traveling?

Do you have ideas? Share!

And I'll do my best to incorporate those ideas in the story!

Also if you guys see mistakes please feel free to point them out to me^_^

Have a good morning/ day/ evening/ night wonderful people!

Take care!


	7. Chapter 7

"Explain." the command came out almost too rushed for the always-in-control Uchiha.

Sasukes sword was still drawn out and he knew that it unnerved Monoke quite a bit judging by his raised eyebrows.

But Sasuke wanted to know.

"How you knew of my brother."

The tree Sasuke had cut down earlier was laying on the ground long forgotten as all of his attention suddenly focused solely on the older male. Monoke in turn bent down and started to put the logs in a pile probably to avoid the intense stare of the boy.

"I told you, I was born in Konoha." he said peacefully.

That did not satisfy the black haired boy and he narrowed his eyes to portray his annoyance.

Seeing no other ways out Monoke decided to strike another deal. "Fine. I tell of my past but then you have to keep on cutting wood." he blinked once, then twice, waiting for the Uchiha to agree.

Sasuke contemplated his choices.

One significant part of him wanted the answers now. Straight away. Itachi was _his_ _brother. His family._ He knew that just few seconds under the sharingan and the archer would show and tell him _everything_. And that choice he desired the most. Quick and easy.

But the other, small part of the Uchiha told him to calm down.

He had so much time.

Did he really had to rush?

A memory showed up before his inner eyes. A memory he replayed and relived over and over for quite a lot of times before his release from the prison.

 _He heard the newcomer only when the door of his room was opened and closed._

 _A_ _ninja_ _came to visit him._

 _The other staff always made a lot of noise even while simply walking which annoyed the boy to no end._

 _Sasuke tried to guess… did Naruto show up to talk or did Sakura came to stare at him again..._

 _Choices. Choices._

 _No matter._

 _He did not talk to anyone for days and he did not wish to do so now._

 _Friend or no friend._

" _It seems I can not judge you." the voice was low and hushed for some reason but Sasuke recognized it straight away._

" _Gaara."_

" _Hmm."_

 _Silence had fallen upon the room after such brief introductions._

 _What an unexpected change in routine, the black haired prisoner thought amused, here I thought I was not supposed to have company._

" _I came to look at your eyes." the redhead started slowly. Sasuke smelled his breath now. "But your eyes are hidden."_

 _A smirk showed up on the Uchihas face._

" _Pity." he replied and looked away. Uninterested._

" _Certainly is." came the redheads solemn reply._

 _A shift in the air made Sasuke deduct that the Kazekage had either moved or turned. Probably the second because he didn't hear any cloth rustling._

 _Sasuke wanted to tell him to go away and not annoy him but Gaara had beaten him and started to speak first:_

" _I remember the feeling. The feeling of being stuck and yet knowing that you can get out so easily. Inviting isn't it?"_

 _Sasuke did not move a muscle on his face._

" _Inviting but so utterly pointless." Gaara went on. "You could destroy the chains, take down the walls, level down the whole village but what after that? I used to ask myself the same question when I was younger. Naruto Uzumaki however showed me the answer. I understand now. More than ever…"_

" _Understand what?" Sasuke couldn't help but utter harshly._

 _Another long pause stretched on._

 _For a moment Sasuke even thought the redhead left without finishing._

 _But the answer came nonetheless._

" _Can you imagine, how much trouble could have been avoided if people simply talked to each other?..."_

 _. . ._

 _Talked….to each other….?_

 _Images of Itachi came almost as if on cue._

 _The Uchiha family. His clan. His_ _father_ _._

" _Such a simple solution..." Sasuke breathed out dejectedly, his imagination already painting him the possible scenarios in his head. He almost let out a loud laugh when he imagined his strict father suddenly talking to his sons about the clans plan to overrun Konoha._

 _What idiocy, the Uchiha thought sarcastically._

 _But another sentence came to mind...a more precious one…_

" _I think you could have changed them, brother." Itachis voice rang clearly in his head. " If only I told you the truth back then, who knows, maybe you could have saved them. Save our clan."_

 _Sasuke let out a shattered breath._

" _You probably understand this even better than most other people." Gaara of the Sand concluded. " Even though Naruto showed us the way, the path is ours to walk on. Remember this."_

"-o it's a deal...? Hey boy! Did you space out or something?"

Sasuke felt a poke at his right shoulder.

He looked down to see Monoke with a stick in his hand and a very confused facial expression.

"I cut trees, you talk." the Uchiha agreed while collecting his rampaging thoughts and nodding in the direction of the woods. The sword was put back in its holder as both man set up to search for more firewood. One calm and determined, the other confused but accepting.

"To be frank my story is not as exciting as other tales my family has in the collection because no matter how you put it - I never truly moved away from here. Traveled - yes. But the fire nation is my home."

"Cut to the point." Sasuke interrupted hastily.

"Pf, no of course! If I do that you'll leave before I even find another suitable tree." the man shook his head at such obvious outcome.

Sasuke wanted to say that he kept his promises no matter what but then decided to keep quiet and let Monoke continue. It would indeed be a faster way to gain information.

"As I said earlier I was born in Konoha so naturally I went through the academy and received my ninja training. I became a genin and then at the age of fifteen - chunin. No point in telling about my life back at that time, it's all always the same - missions."

"The peace gained after the second shinobi war was still standing but everyone already heard the rumors about how Hidden Rock village wanted payback for the previously lost war. Some few years later, quite predictably, Rock and Cloud joined in and declared war on us. It was a bloody hell..." the man cringed, probably to his hunting memories.

Sasuke couldn't really relate to this since most of the fourth war had passed beside him. The Uchiha only fought at the end of it thus in a way missing, well, everything. He did hear the stories though.

"Thanks to the Fourth Hokage Minato the bloodshed was ended faster than most predicted,thank Kami for that, but some peculiar incidents still happened and this is where your family comes in." Sasuke straightened himself almost on reflexes.

"I think everyone in the village has been talking about how a certain Uchiha Fugaku had taken his only son to the battlefield and what came out of it."

"What?" Sasuke asked baffled.

"Oh stop asking 'What' all the time-" Monoke rolled his eyes but in the process he saw another dried out tree and his face changed from bored to interested in a very comical way. "Now that's a good trunk! Go on, cut it!"

It was Sasukes turn to roll his eyes at such behavior but he still did as he was told.

"Anyway, as I was saying-" Monoke carried on while setting the logs in a neat pile and getting up to continue their search. "I wasn't a parent back then but even I was smart enough to understand that this is just not something one should do to a child. Especially your own child. Now that I myself have kids I can't help but find even the very idea of doing something like that - repulsive. And don't look at me with such glare boy, when you will have kids of your own you will understand."

"You see, there's this thing about children, they live in their utopian world without any care because they feel protected by their parents. This protection, _love,_ makes them fearless enough to perceive the world. It's also a base for trust to the said world."

Sasuke listened carefully to what the older man was saying and tried to push his own thoughts away. He'd have time to rethink all of this later.

"Now imagine what happens to a child when everything - love, protection, trust - is being taken away. By your own father to say the least. This is a mental _trauma_." the archer nodded.

"Now to cut to the point as you so said it yourself, I left the village year after the fox attacked. I was there when the clans were moved to the new grounds, personally I still think this was a mistake but oh well… After that I've been traveling for sometime, you know, seeing the world for what it is and all, though, it's a separate story altogether. I fell in love, got married... When I finally decided to come back to Konoha for good I realized it was not the peaceful village it once was and after so many years away it even felt foreign, so my wife and I decided to live on our own and I left the place for good."

"I found this place," the man spread his hands wide and smiled a victorious smile, "and understood that one doesn't need much to be happy."

"What of my brother?" Sasuke asked again while cutting one more tree.

"I haven't heard of Konoha affairs for a while since I was busy taking care of my growing family but one day when I was in the trading village I heard of the Uchiha's massacre. There were so many theories flying around that people found it hard to figure out what in the world really happened. But there was a fact: Itachi Uchiha had killed the whole Uchiha clan in cold blood. Some said he wanted to test his capacity other speculated he was a spy sent from one of the hidden villages.. _Some_ said that the clan was planning a coup and the boy just used this to finally break free from the village in general."

A small pause had fallen between the both men.

At some point Sasuke thought he'd feel anger after hearing of the past again, especially about the death of his loved ones but the only feeling he had was a small sadness in the back of his soul. _I guess I was able to accept…_

"I saw your brother in the village quite often, you know, he loved to just walk around and look at people. He wasn't a killer that boy." Monoke looked pointedly at the black haired companion walking beside him. "I'm still certain of this fact. I won't put my nose into other people's business but I do believe there was something wrong in the clan." Sasuke looked at the archer and realized that the man in front of him was far more smarter than he initially thought. _He understands everything_ , he concluded.

But he didn't utter a word of confirmation anyways, just nodded.

"To wrap this up, I saw your brother after the massacre as well."

Now this got Sasukes attention.

"We met when I was going home through the woods. A group of rogues was following me and were about to attack but he stopped them. I can't say I'm completely helpless but the group was big enough to kill me."

"Something was troubling your brother's mind and body greatly because when I offered him food in exchange for his service he accepted it but with a deep frown. Said that it's no good for a Konoha ninja to feed a criminal. Ha!" Monoke let out a loud laugh as if reliving the moment again. "I wasn't thanking Konoha! But the man who saved me. He could have been a serial killer for all I cared, but I can see kindness when it's in front of me. Thing is, Itachi was followed by some other ninjas…"

"And?"

"And they followed us all the way to my humble abode. Good thing it was empty at that point because half the house ended up being destroyed due to a badly used earth technique. We won of course but I was quite upset about the destruction."

"And?" Sasuke urged again. He was engrossed in the story a lot now, as if he was learning about his brother all over again. It was...interesting.

"And he helped me to rebuild it."

Black eyes went wide after hearing this.

 _Aniki…_

"Good thing he did so, my wife was coming home with a newborn child and a half missing house was not something I wanted to greet her with. I saw him few more times after that but then I heard he was killed... I will finish my story here."

Both had stopped walking. Sasuke because his thoughts had swallowed his mind and he simply didn't realise he stopped and Monoke because he simply could not go any further.

A loud rustling made the Uchiha look at the older man again. The hunter took off his backpack and started to go through it muttering something about stubborn men.

"Here, take this." and he showed a small package into the boys hand. "It's not much but since you didn't want to stay the night.."

Sasuke looked at the inside of the package and saw that it contained few pieces of bread a bottle of something that looked like water and some ration pills.

"Why?" he asked confused.

 _Why help a criminal?_ He wanted to ask but that just screamed silly.

"You're a lost soul just like your brother once was. But you live on anyways. Use this life to its fullest while still breathing, go see the world, fall in love things like that. Live. For your brothers sake."

There were words Sasuke wanted to say but nothing wanted to come out for some reason so he opted to nod once again, accepting the gift.

"I'll gather the firewood on my own, the kids will help me I'm sure. If you want to reach the closest settling I suggest the trading village."

"It's not good." the boy uttered evenly.

The man hmed slowly as if recalling something.

"Then go west. The prey should be back to normal and you shouldn't have problems catching it. Use a little bit of alcohol to clean your kunai of bacteria before hunting. In three or four days you should reach the border with the land of Rivers, do what you want from there. But might I suggest, try crossing the desert. You'll be surprised." after these words the hunter turned around and started to walk back to where they came from.

Sasukes head was still full of rampaging thoughts but he had enough decency to utter a quiet thank you and another nod which looked a lot like a bow.

After that he looked up to the sky to judge his position and went on his way as well.

* * *

Read, enjoy, review ^_^


	8. Chapter 8

Sasuke could have sworn the woods were playing tricks on him. This morning the whole forest population seemed dead yet now the animals were all over the place.

Just few hours after parting with Monoke and the Uchiha already saw a small family of deer, twice, got enough rabbits to last him _days_ and even managed to stumble upon a bush with some berries. Unfortunately he had no idea if they were edible or not so he didn't touch them.

"Where were you when needed?" the question left his mouth when he saw another rabbit jump out of thick bushes. On the next second Sasuke stopped and narrowed his eyes.

 _This rabbit is white._

 _It's not winter yet._

 _Trap._

Just as these thoughts went through his head a set of shuriken was thrown at him from East. Sasuke dodged them with ease and expended his chakra to see where the enemy was.

 _Who would even use rabbits as decoys at this point?...That trick is long overdue,_ he thought annoyed and turned around.

 _There. The tree on the right._

The boy quickly flesh stepped in front of the culprit and with a swift hit to the back of the neck put an end to the ordeal.

 _The first out of many more to come_ , he realised darkly.

Sasuke looked down at the man in front of him. There were no identifying traces visible on the burglar, he only wore the ordinary grey clothes and carried two bags.

No headband, no signs - nothing.

Sasuke decided to take a look inside the bags. _Thieves always have maps with them._ And Sasuke was in dire need of one.

The first bag was full of shurikens as he checked, _those were probably stolen_ , and the other one was full of gold and money which were _definitely_ stolen.

With a lazy speed Sasuke took out some wires and tied the culprit to a tree, frowning because it really was not his job to catch stupid thiefs and also angered that out of all self respected rogues with maps he got the one who didn't have anything.

Without uttering a word the boy turned around and continued on his journey without touching anything the embezzler had on him. He knew his babysitters would find the attacker and deal with him as they see fit.

Once Sasuke remembered about his ANBU watchers he frowned again. One presence still came in and out of his sensing range from time to time but only _one._ Didn't Kakashi say _all_ countries sent out their ANBUs?

If so, shouldn't he have at least five people trailing him?

Finding no answer to this the boy shook his head and looked up at the sky.

The sun was already near the ground and dusk was approaching fast.

He needed to find a good place to camp.

At first Sasuke wanted to put his sleeping bag in the middle of the small clearing he saw just ahead but then abandoned that idea when he heard a quiet growl of the waking man behind him.

 _I need more distance._

Yet still, he mused, even that didn't guarantee a quiet night free from interruptions and intruders. They weren't a threat to him by any means but they were indeed very annoying.

A short, angry breath escaped his mouth as the boy strode ahead with a faster pace.

...

Sasuke stopped only when the moon showed up on the cloudless sky and the wind became cold enough to make his legs numb.

Startled, the Uchiha had realised that without even wanting so he had walked for three straight hours all because of the anger he felt deep within his chest. Anger which he couldn't control nor understand.

Sasuke let out a deep breath trying to calm down.

Why was he angry in the first place?

Nothing was done to him.

The pest that tried to attack him was just that - a pest. Yet still he was _angry._

At the man or maybe _because_ of the man… Sasuke didn't know. Couldn't tell.

The prison had helped him to learn about his inner thoughts but finding reasons behind them still proved difficult.

* * *

On the next morning Sasuke woke up sitting on the tree bench.

His last night gave him a good idea as to how he could sleep and stay hidden well enough to be unseen from the ground.

The only thing that didn't let him use such method of sleep often was the fact that the farther he went from the heart of the fire nation the thinner the trees became. At least in this part of the country.

 _And it's also highly uncomfortable,_ he thought sleepily and rolled his shoulders to ease away the stiffness.

For breakfast Sasuke decided to fry one of the rabbits he caught the day prior.

Within minutes the boy got a fire going and found some good, live branches still filled with juice.

 _Those wouldn't burn in the fire while holding the meat._ He thought calmly.

Unfortunately that was the easy part Sasuke concluded after he took the dead prey in his sole hand and realised fur was not something he desired to eat.

Rabbits were definitely not as easy to prepare as fish...

 _I need to skin it,_ the Uchiha sighed.

Unfortunately it was easier said than done.

The absence of a hand had once again put the young male in a complicated position.

Grunting at such turn of events and trying to calm his rising anger Sasuke thought of ways in which he could bypass this inconvenience.

At first he tried using his knees to hold the small body while using his sole hand to take off the skin.

It didn't work.

The rabbit slipped away every damn time he tried.

Another growl escaped his mouth but the Uchiha kept on going.

On his next try he had used a kunai and stuck one side of the rabbit to the ground right beside the fire. When it was tightly secured Sasuke pinned the other side of the animal as well and with his free hand started the process again.

All went well until the fur on the animal's hind legs caught fire. The smell of burned hair was so horrible the teen had to take off the kunai and move the body away cursing everything he saw while doing so.

Still, Sasuke tried again, but luck was obviously not on his side because on his third try he ended up cutting the animal's stomach wide open which resulted in spilled guts all around his campsite.

If before Sasuke succeeded at somehow controlling his temper now it was on a full out rampage.

"Stupid animal!" he growled and tossed the prey to the side. Sadly, it only made the blood spill so much more.

The irritation he felt was so great now that for a second his ninja instincts took over and he felt his chakra come out and surround him becoming darkish blue in color.

Sasuke deadpanned after realising what he almost called out.

Over a rabbit.

And thats when it hit him.

 _Susanoo is a skeleton._

 _With_ _hands_ _._

And he needed a hand.

"Maybe refusing Hashirama's cells was not such a good idea.." Sasuke whispered in contemplation while he looked at the bloody mess around him. Because the idea he had in his head was downright foolish and draining.

Yet he needed food.

In the end he had no choice but summon his chakra in a form of a hand.

"It better not burn." the boy ordered with narrowed eyes as he carefully picked up the body.

It was weird at first because he didn't feel the animal with his sense of touch, he rather understood with his mind that it was just… holding.

He was holding it.

Still, it worked, so the Uchiha labeled this a success and finished his task. After skinning he cut the meat in pieces and implanted it on two sticks.

Timewise Sasuke could say such idea was genius. Just in few minutes he had finished the bloody job and he almost summoned another, third hand, just to test the limits of his powers and see what happens.

But then accusing blue eyes came forward in his mind.

Sasuke froze.

This... his absent hand was supposed to remind him of his sins yet here he was, acting as if its absence meant nothing.

Sasuke shook his head to clear it. "This is survival." he said slowly. In a sense. the Uchiha owned Naruto his life so he just had to survive no matter what so he could to repay his debt. At some point.

That was enough to clean his head and finish the job.

After few more minutes everything was done and two sticks with meat were put over the small fire. Of course Sasuke didn't forget to use what little alcohol Monoke had given him to disinfect his kunais when the cutting (and killing also) was done. Though he still didn't understand why he needed to do this in the first place.

 _Maybe later on someone might explain this but so far..._

So far he followed the advice.

The next half an hour passed relatively quickly. Sasuke just stared at the coals with his mind blank while waiting for the meat to get ready.

 _Strange,_ he thought slowly, _after Monokes story I expected myself to feel at least something._ But apart from the small fatigue the Uchiha felt nothing. Maybe a bit drained…

An amused breath escaped him.

The mighty Sasuke Uchiha, the last of the mighty Uchihas, one of the most powerful ninja on the face of the earth, felt drained after preparing breakfast.

That was as funny as it was sad.

He was glad his blond rival was not here to see all of this.

 _The rabbit was enough excitement for a day._ He concluded with a nod and turned the meat again.

Seeing that it was done he took it out and without waiting for it to cool off - dug in.

...

It took him three monotonous days to get to the border.

Three boring days of staring at nothing but fire. And sometimes rabbits. But whenever he stared at them he always found himself surrounded by blood. Innocent blood of a prey of course but for some reason it unnerved him just the same.

The good part was that he had finally mastered his spare hand technique and with such was able leave his campsites lot less messy and gory. An obvious improvement compared to his first try of cooking.

The bad part was that he was tired of eating rabbits. And he was sort of lost.

In theory Sasuke understood that he was far from being off course. He wanted to go to the River country so he came here.. (He saw a wooden sign saying " _You are now leaving Fire country."_ just few minutes ago). But Sasuke needed a big enough town with a working bank filial, _preferably_ still in the land of Fire. He doubted the other nations would even let him enter the big towns.

Sighing, Sasuke turned North deciding to follow the border until he found at least something. At the same time his stomach let out a loud growling noise making which made the boy cringe.

 _I hate rabbits._


	9. Chapter 9

By evening Sasuke did manage to find a big enough town, though he had to climb over a small mountain in order to actually get in it.

The border village the Uchiha ended up in was build in between two cliffs which were connected by numerous bridges. Down below was a fast running river making its way southeast. The water successfully caught the rays of the setting sun and then cast them as an orange hue upon everything in sight making everything look a little unreal.

What stood out the most in this settling though was not its peculiar build but its colors. And not the ones that came from the sun and the river.

The villages right side, the one that stood on fire nation territory, was fully cled in red. This color was literally everywhere: on houses, roofs, on some of the bridges that connected the two halfs, heck, even most of the clothes the citizens had were red. Sasuke couldn't help but roll his eyes at such an obvious choice. _Of course Konoha people would show off._

The other side had a more subtle, light blue coloring. _That would be the River Nation color,_ he thought calmly. The amount of it was by far less than on Konohas side and Sasuke actually found himself enjoying this difference.

This settling in general was drastically different from the Trading village he had been to few days prior. It was clean and did not have corpses lying around for everyone to see. Sasuke was glad for this little detail, he definitely did not want to act like a hero again and cut the darn chakra tree.

Mainly because he was not a hero.

The Uchiha blinked few times in order to concentrate and stop thinking of colors and heroes.

He needed money and provision.

And a darn map. So Sasuke set off to the centre of the fire nation half in hopes of finding a working bank filial.

The Kami showed mercy on him because just as Sasuke turned to the main street he immediately saw two different banks not that far from each other. That was quite a pleasant surprise. If worst came to worst and one bank refused to serve him he had the option of trying the other one instead of going off in search for another village.

At least that was the option. Sasuke didn't want to think of what could happen if both banks refused him and there was no village nearby.

"How can I help you?" was shot at him the minute the male entered the building. The questionnaire was a middle aged woman with narrowed, brown colored eyes. Her overall posture was slightly rigid and she looked rather tired. There were two other people present, one more woman behind the counter and also what looked like a shinobi guard standing to the right of the door. All of the workers looked rather worn out, especially the guard.

Sasuke decided not to pay attention to this and went to the counter. The brown eyed woman followed him silently.

"I need to withdraw some funds." he started slowly, evenly.

"Finally a sane customer!"" the same woman exclaimed uncontrollably. Her hands immediately covered her mouth after she realised her mistake. Sasuke couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. There was obviously a problem here. "Sorry for such a comment, it was out of place." she slightly bowed in apology but now a small smile appeared on her tired face. "You see we had people coming from all over of this side of the country demanding we compensate their losses in the war but let me tell you half of them are regular liars trying to trick us! Unfortunately they know how to cause quite a scene... Name please?"

"Uchiha Sasuke."

After an awkward pause the poor lady let out such a desperate breath one could think the end of the world suddenly came to visit.

"Not a single day of rest." she quietly murmured. "Not a single…"

The dead silence and the stares Sasuke felt around his person were annoying but he made himself endure it.

 _Wait,_ he told himself.

 _Wait._

For a second he thought that that was it and he had to try the other bank when the woman took a breath and got ready to talk. For a second she gazed at her coworkers, probably for help, but those backed away almost to the far corner of the room with wide eyes, seeing this she shook her head and begun.

"Yes, your family account was opened by the Hokages order, we received it just few days ago, however, we never thought that you'd be… out so soon Uchiha-san."

Sasuke kept quite. There was nothing for him to say to this. At least they didn't kick him out immediately after hearing his name.

"Well, the Hokage _was_ your teacher so it was to be expected, I think." Again, Sasuke kept quiet. "How much do you need?"

Now that was better.

Sasuke didn't waste time and named the amount he wanted to retrieve but when he saw the frown on the womans face he paused. _What now?_

"Unfortunately we don't have such an amount at the moment."

"What?" The uchiha let out a little angrily.

"I'm afraid Mira-sama is right." Sasuke turned to the younger woman who spoke for the first time. She looked thin and had a very peculiar violet hair color, her face however was passive as she spoke. "We gave away almost everything as a compensation, next refill will be somewhere around next week so if you-"

Not waiting for the rest of the sentence Sasuke turned around and made his way towards the door.

 _What a waste of time._ He thought glumly.

"No point in visiting our neighbors." The older Mira spoke lamely. "They're empty just as we are, just as all the banks around the country and beyond."

This information made the boy stop.

 _Is she serious?_

"What do you mean?" he asked to elaborate.

"Just that, we're out of money."

So much for an explanation.

The other woman came closer to Mira and spoke again. "You have no choice but to wait, we will be the first to receive the refill anyways."

Sasuke sighed and nodded, what other choice did he have? But that meant more rabbits and he was honestly sick of them. To make it worst his stomach let out a weird noise once again, probably for the heck of it.

"Work for us during this week."

Sasuke couldn't count how many 'What?' he heard from inside the bank that day.

"But Mira-sama…!" the ninja guard started asking in shock. "Is that... wise?"

The lady let out a very unlady like snort and turned to the guard, her hands on her waist her eyes closed as she narrated.

"Kai you haven't had a rest in weeks and that boy is...able enough. I'm just thinking of what's best, what we had today is not the end…"

Sasuke had to repeat his previous question because suddenly he found himself rather lost as to what was going on.

"What do you mean?"

Mira snorted again in annoyance.

"It's easy, you work for us while we wait for the new convoy and during the day it arrives. You help us deal with the constant attacks and do nothing if such do not occur, іn return we give you food and shelter. After we receive the money you'll take what you need and leave us be. Does that sound good?"

Sasuke stared with wide eyes at the weird woman in front of him. That Mira surely had a character that was obvious. He was expecting for her to be afraid, to be angry and so on for his crimes to the villages and to the world but no... she was offering him a job…

This experience was somehow new for Sasuke. People hated him. That he knew quite well.

And of course he deserved that.

...

 _Not all of the people are bad ya know!_

 _The world is not against you._

 _Just give it a chance to show it._

…

Naruto said that while Sasuke was still in prison.

Was he right?

 _Should I accept?_

Sasuke didn't know. It wasn't in his intentions to get a job, he was on his way to the battlefield, that's it. But what difference did it make if he came there few weeks later? No one controlled him anyway. And the prospect of normal meals did sound appealing.

But, if there was one thing that Sasuke had learned during his short life rather well it was the fact that there was _always_ something underneath the underneath.

So what did they want from him? Sasuke narrowed his eyes.

Didn't that Mira realise his presence would most likely scare people off, no matter his peaceful intentions?

So many things were unknown...

In the end though, reason had won.

Sasuke needed money and if working for this lady meant getting them faster than he needed to agree.

And so he did.

"Fine." he confirmed out loud.

"Wonderful." Mira said immediately, as if she already knew his answer. "Kai you can rest until the refill arrives."

Of course the ninja guard did not agree to such turn of events that easily.

"Mira-sama please think this through! He's a criminal what if something happens?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes in annoyance. People were always judging.

"Oh calm down you I'm sure he has ANBU watching over him. Hokages are not stupid."

Sasuke couldn't help but raise his eyebrows at that.

How did she know?

That Mira really was peculiar.

"Pf, as if those ANBUs are good for anything…" the man murmured but he did in the end accept the order. "As you say Mira-sama. I will return in one week then." with that said he exited the building but though not before giving the black haired man a hard stare.

None of that fazed Sasuke of course, the boy simply brushed it off and followed the brown eyed Mira to the back door.

The door led to a small kitchen like room with two more doors at it sides. Compared to the minimalistic design of the main room this kitchen looked very home like with a cooking oven, a sink and a refrigerator.

"The brown door," Mira pointed casually. "is yours. It's not meant for living but sleeping there is quite comfortable. The other door is the bathroom. We will be closing soon so you needn't to be present this evening. Tomorrow however we're opening at 8 in the morning so you should be ready by that time."

After giving all the information the woman took out a set of keys and after fuzzing with them for some time finally gave Sasuke one small key. "I will lock the bank after ten. With this you are not locked in. The outsiders though are locked out. Any questions?"

"Why are you doing this?"

The question came out faster than Sasuke could even comprehend it.

The answer was also something Sasuke did not expect to hear.

"I'd rather you work for me than against me. You are a strong ninja."

After that Mira nodded at the brown door direction but herself exited the kitchen like back room.

Night had fallen.

* * *

Read.

Enjoy.

Review.


	10. Chapter 10

Sasuke couldn't even call it a room.

The _space_ he received as a shelter just looked like an overstuffed closet with a bed, a table (both situated alongside the right wall) and a window situated on the opposite side of the entrance door. Overall the room had no more than three square meters in general.

The previous occupant obviously did not find it in himself to take care of the place he slept in, because the situation here was worse than in a overfull dumpster. Empty, opened cans were all over the floor and the table, together with the leftovers of some takeover food which long ago got covered with some kind of greenery. The amount of dust flying around was so great Sasuke could taste it in his mouth. Without actually opening it. He also saw some spilled drinks, mostly on the floor. Upon closer look Sasuke saw that those had already dried out which spoke of the longevity of… all of this.

It made him wrinkle his nose in disgust.

The Uchiha was pretty sure he saw some dead flies stuck in there...

In the end the male concluded that this _shelter_ was even worse than Narutos room. Sasuke thought such abominations were impossible but life decided to prove him wrong once again.

 _Still, could be worse,_ he thought calmly while thinking of his uncomfortable branch sleeping experience during the rain.

Though, when Sasuke sat down on the bed and saw a small dust cloud go up he understood that no, this could not in any way be worse.

His sleeping bag was at least _clean_! While this…

...

 _I need to stop whining._

With that the Uchiha made up his mind and did what any reasonable human would do.

He started cleaning.

Of course it would have been easier to just leave it be and refuse the job offer altogether but Sasuke was a man of his word. And he wanted to keep his reputation as such.

 _I will endure till the end of the deal._

 _..._

In order to save his traveler's bag from contamination of unknown sorts he left it in the kitchen together with his cloak. After that he roamed the kitchen shelves in hopes of finding some garbage bags.

He succeeded.

Then Sasuke immediately started to pick up the laying garbage with his sole hand, quite thankful for his glove being intact. The overall process took him a while but as an end result he could walk to the window and back (it was the only road available for walking in such a tight space) without the need to climb mountains of trash.

Next, he opened up the window to let some air in while he kept on with the collecting. At the same time he swept clean the table from dust and other weird things he did not want to identify using a sponge from the kitchen.

The fresh evening air from the opened window cleared his head a little and with a renewed resolve he started up with the last and probably the most hardest task - the floor.

For a second Sasuke thought of just taking a bucket full of water and spilling it free in the middle of the room but his non nonsense mind made him abort such idea in its roots. Instead he found some old mop in the bathroom and scrubbed the wooden floor at least three times in a row. The stains gave him some trouble at first but in the end he managed to get rid of them as well.

After such actions the room became quite unrecognisable and he could now spend time in it without being afraid of getting sick.

As his last action Sasuke took off all the dusty blankets and put them in a pile on the windowsill. Instead of them Sasuke once again used his tent and put the covering cloth of it on the mattress thus making a makeshift bed. And just to make sure Sasuke also took his sleeping bag deciding that it was safer to create as much distance as possible from the mattress and himself.

Who knew what the hell lived in that thing.

By the time the Uchiha finished cleaning the room it was already dark. For a second the male thought it was already close to midnight but then he remembered that the winter was close on his heals and during winter the days were shorter.

"You'll ruin your eyes if you keep working in the dark." and then someone switched the light on making Sasuke cringe at the sudden change.

The Uchiha turned around finding the purple haired woman, whose name he never found out, standing at the entrance of his newly cleaned shelter.

"What do you want?" he asked not so kindly, tired and pissed out after such a long day.

Apart from a small widening of the eyes the woman stayed unfazed.

"I'm just as tired as you are but I'm not going around brooding in the dark." Sasuke didn't even move showing very profoundly that he had no care for this tidbit of information. "It's ten, were closing now." the woman made a small pause again probably thinking he would respond at least somehow. But Sasuke didn't. And he still didn't understand why she came. He had the key - he was not locked in. "Whatever," she said offhandedly, " What food should I bring tomorrow?"

"Rice."

She raised an eyebrow at his immediate response.

"And?"

Sasuke furrowed his in return.

"Vegetables."

"What, no meat?"

Sasuke just stared unblinkingly.

"Fish?"

The Uchiha frowned. He ate too much wild rabbits during the last few days. Meat was making him feel sick and he had a feeling fish would do the same. So..

"No." with that he turned around hoping the lady got the hint and would leave him be.

Fortunately for him the woman did understand and with a small shake of her head she turned to leave, "The name's Yusuke by the way." with that said she left murmuring something about how Kai was at least conversational.

…

The next morning was somewhat weird.

Even though the night was quiet and for the first time in weeks Sasuke actually managed to sleep without waking up every few few hours, he still ended up rising before dawn. No matter the fact that he slept on a very comfortable bed and with a solid roof above him which was suppose to give him at least some sort of reassurance.

The Uchiha really wanted to get rid of this old habit because by all means he was _not_ a morning person.

Old habits had a tendency to die hard though, so he had no other choice but to sit in the now clean room and wait for the rest of the crew to show up.

Judging by his inner clock and by the color of the sky outside it was just past six in the morning.

Sasuke decided to spent his time effectively and sat down monk style to meditate. The first few minutes went by okay with him slowly relaxing but then he took a big breath in and then froze, wide eyed.

He… smelled…

Sasuke felt his eye beginning to twitch.

 _The hell..?_

Getting up the male took his backpack and marched to the bathroom with a nasty scowl on his face.

He cleaned his body in the stream just a day ago, how could he already stink?...

…

If the sleeping room he received was an elaborated mess the bathroom was the complete opposite. It was spotless and perfectly white.

Sasuke concluded that it was either new or taken care by the two ladies. For now Sasuke couldn't care less for the answer but for this state he was grateful.

Deep down the Uchiha was a clean freak and he knew that.

After quickly stripping bare the male started to search in his back for the big towel and the shower utensils. Once that was over with Sasuke walked to the simple mirror and eyed his left hand, or more like what was kept of it.

…

" _Look guys, your hands are in a delicate state right now." A quiet voice told him the night before his leave. He was sitting in one of the most secluded and well protected hospital rooms with his pink and blond haired teammates. Naruto was surprisingly quiet but what was even more stranger was the fact neither the Hokage nor Kakashi showed up earlier that day. Usually when it was time for his annual check up he was escorted from his prison cell by both. This time - it was just his very solemn looking friend and the head of the interrogation department Ibiki._

" _It's very important not ruin the progress already done." Sakura Haruno continued narrating calmly as she bandaged both of their wounds after confirming that they were healing well. She was fully in her medic nonshit mode, Sasuke noticed, she didn't even spare a glance his way._

 _Sakura was also a little angry from what he could see but the reason why was unknown to the black haired male. It was obvious though that she was trying, and quite frankly failing, to appear calm and this somehow made Naruto look even more serious. And ...was that guilt? Sasuke wasn't sure. "It may look healed but it's just the upper layers, put a little pressure on it or expose to bacteria and everything will go backwards and then it won't be just your wrist gone but the_ _whole_ _hand. So no matter what happens_ _don't_ _push it. Understood?" the girl looked at their blond companion with an expecting look obviously trying to convey some hidden message through._

" _Yeah." the Uzumaki breathed out completely unfocused as to what was being said, eyes downcast he was obviously somewhere in the world of his own. Which was very weird because the blond always talked when he was around Sasuke._

 _Sakura just closed her eyes, also lost in thought._

 _Something was definitely going on and those two knew of it… were Kakashi and Tsunade involved?_

 _Sasuke narrowed his eyes._

 _It had to do something with him. That was about the only thing that could make Naruto act so out of his usual self. For a second he felt an urge to ask them what the hell was going on but then he decided otherwise, he had other questions he wanted answered first._

" _Sakura," Now was his chance to ask what he wanted to know while he was still in the presence of a medic. After seeing that the rosette was concentrated solely on him he went on. "How should I," he paused trying to find the right words, "take care of this?" those would do he decided as he nodded to his stump._

 _For a second Sakura's eyes widened and her mouth formed an 'o' in surprise. That was understandable. Sasuke never talked with her, for various reasons._

" _Well, uh," she stumbled for a bit but then with a shake of her head the pinkette started her lecture. "For starters you always have to keep the bandages on. And as I said earlier for the next few months it will still be very sensitive so you will have to be careful. Baths are still forbidden and shower time should be cut to minimum, better yet, it would be preferable if you didn't get your hand wet for at least another two or three weeks at all. If you see at least a tiny bit of blood or any type of liquid in general you should immediately request me- uh, a medic." Sakura furrowed her brows deep in thought obvious to her previous use of words. "That's about it. Would be better if I could oversee the healing for another few months but…" she closed her eyes and cast her head down. "Anyways , the prosthetic should be done really soon so that's a good news, right?" for a first time a smile appeared on her face but it went down when the door was opened and Ibiki stepped in._

 _Back to four walls._

…

Sasuke stared at his hand trying to see if he could spot any blood on the bandages.

Everything was okay though, as far as he could see. Even after small fights and training he had done his hand was faring well.

 _Good,_ he nodded.

The Uchiha did not want to go around looking for a medic. Just that one thought always made him uneasy after he left Konoha but seeing that everything was okay he let himself relax and went on with his cleaning.

Sasuke couldn't really call it a shower. Since he couldn't get his stump wet he had to take a towel, pour water on it and then go all over his body with it. This procedure didn't really cleaned him that good since there were places he simply couldn't reach with his sole hand but it saved him the trouble of an infection.

And that was the most important thing.

Pretty soon he was done and dressed again.

 _I need to get another set of clothes,_ the male thought absentmindedly, _this set is already dirty._ In the end, money was the key to everything. Good thing he wasn't poor.

…

"This sure breaks the tradition."

By seven thirty, as the clock in the reception room where Sasuke had been waiting for his co workers showed, the two woman finally showed up. Yusuke carried a small bag with her, probably with the groceries they talked about yesterday, while Mira had her hands full with an enormous stack of papers. It was Mira who spoke to the awaiting (and bored as hell) Sasuke. "Can't say that in a bad way though." she finished up while dumping the giant folder on the table and looking at her new guard judgingly.

"Hm." quite frankly Sasuke had no idea what she meant by that. He was up before eight just as she said.

He did his part.

"Usually Kai made breakfast for us three." Yusuke explained offhandedly seeing that her friend was not elaborating, she then moved to the backroom while humming a quiet tune under her nose.

Seeing that her superior followed suite Sasuke had no choice but to do the same.

"Nothing can be worse than an unconscious habit." the brown haired lady said calmly while opening the refrigerator and taking out three apples she then tossed them to Sasuke and Yusuke respectively. "This is a good opportunity to change our routine for once," she said while taking a bite, "so we shouldn't complain."

"Yes, Mira-sama." Yusuke complied, she then turned to the Uchiha. "I will take care of the breakfast go with lady Mira and help her prepare."

By prepare the purple haired woman meant sorting the giant stack of papers. Unfortunately, or maybe quite fortunately, Sasuke had no clue as to how it was done so Mira just shooed him away telling him to not disturb.

In general the Uchiha didn't like the way the things were going.

So far Sasuke regretted his choice to stay and work. He had to constantly remind himself that a deal was a deal, in order to not run off to the woods.

He had to endure.

He needed the money.

Closing his eyes for a second the male tried to compose himself.

 _Endure._ He repeated again just to be sure.

By eight, when the three of them had their small breakfast (it was just rice and eggs) and the filial was finally opened a small crowd was already gathered by the entrance door.

What happened next really surprised the Uchiha.

The minute the sign was switched to 'open' everyone in the crowd ran in, pushing and pulling at each other and then they started shouting.

Loudly.

Everyone at the same time.

"I need a compensation for my ruined house!" an old man screamed angrily. "Ninjas own us money for all the provision they took! Pay up!" another man demanded.

"Yeah, pay up!"

Everyone demanded the same thing in general.

Sasuke was confused by this. He thought such behavior was no longer present since the war was over months ago and yet people still suffered greatly from it.

Unless...

' _Most of them are just regular thieves trying to trick us..'_

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at Miras yesterday's words. How could she tell who was lying and who was honest?

"Calm down everyone!" the Uchiha heard Yusuke scream. "We will serve everyone but please form a line and just stay calm."

It worked for few seconds at first but then the complaining started anew.

No one wanted to wait.

 _What a pitiful sight._ Sasuke thought bemused but the feeling quickly turned to annoyance because all the shouting just didn't _stop._ What's worse it grew louder.

Deciding that he had enough Sasuke flash stepped to the front of the counter and stared.

Hard.

" _Stop_ shouting." he said so low it came out almost as a whisper. To make sure his request was heard he made sure his left eye was not covered by his bangs and everyone got a good look of his rinnegan.

A pregnant pause settled in the room at that sight.

"Oh.." came Yusuke's quiet sigh behind him. She sounded... excited..?

Sasuke had to fight down a smirk when he saw how the faces that were all showing anger just seconds ago now had nothing but fear on them.

"..T..that's Sasuke Uchiha…" someone stuttered wide eyed.

"...An Uchiha...No way…"

...

And then shear chaos begun.

For Sasuke it was quite funny seeing how half of the people in the room started to run towards the exit with even more vigor than when they were coming in, shouting loud curse words for everyone to hear.

All because of his presence.

After few minutes of such uncontrolled fleeting only about the fourth of the crowd was left present. Six people to be precise. Those people, even though scared, still held their ground.

"Now I don't care if your an Uchiha or whatever I need to rebuild my home!" some old man said with a fist raised up.

A small laugh was heard from behind Sasuke, "I think we just found a faster way to deal with our pretenders!" Mira exclaimed happily from behind the counter, not paying attention to the customers still present. She only received confused glances from both Sasuke and Yusuke.

"You can move aside for now Sasuke I think we'll be able to deal with these nice people. Am I right?"

The 'nice people' all let out some weird noises while gazing unsurely at the rinnegan wielder but they ended up being more civilized and did follow through with the request Yusuke voiced earlier.

They formed a line.

 _So much trouble just to get them do this._ Sasuke deadpanned while stepping to the side.

"So I take it you all have the forms with you?" Mira continued politely, "If yes come straight to me, if no please approach my assistant Yusuke-san and she will search the archives for you. This morning we received an addition to it so if you didn't have your name there before it might be there now. Am I clear?"

A low murmur of yes was her answer after which the actual work finally started.

Sasuke watched as one by one the customers came to Mira all carrying some kind of a document. After the lady took this document in her hands she did some sort of a jutsu Sasuke had never seen before and the text on the paper turned to either a number or a written list.

When the headmistress saw the confirmation on the document she opened a bulky, old looking safe using her chakra signature and gave the needed amount of money to the requester. Or, if it was a list, she took out a calculator and counted the price of everything that list had in it using her own list of set prices.

Everything was done quite fast and in no time the reception was once again empty.

"That was...easy." Yusuke said a little awed. She turned to Sasuke her face showing amusement. "You sure know how to place fear in people, but I'm glad for that! Searching the archives for the names that just aren't there in the first place is a pain."

"Oh yeah, definitely." Mira agreed absentmindedly while burying herself in more documents. "And to make it worst those people who never had their names catalogued just refused to leave peacefully. Kai had to use force all the damn time." she said quietly.

"How does this system work?" Sasuke inquired seeing that they had no one to serve at the moment.

"Ah good question." the older lady smiled. "But I'm busy, Yusuke please explain if you feel like it."

"Of course, Mira-sama." the purple haired woman said peacefully. "All the previous wars had a lot of 'accidents'." she started. "Where the ninjas had to use whatever means they could in order to survive. Sometimes that meant taking food, for example, from the ordinary farmers. Or using their homes as as a mean of taking cover. It often led to those places being destroyed or somehow ruined though. It brought a lot of problems in the end so before this war started Konoha had passed a law saying that if such occurrence were to happen they had to be monitored. They came up with these." Yusuke took in her hands the previously seen paper. "It's written in a special ink so it can not be faked. So, for example, if the ninja had no choice and had to resort to such actions he had to sign the form cataloguing everything he took or intended to take at least, thus assuring the citizens that their possessions were not just being stolen but… borrowed. So now all they have to do is show this form at any bank filial of Konohagakure and receive the compensation."

Sasuke found himself being impressed by this. That was a lot of consideration Konoha showed. That also explained why the restoration were going so slow. It looked as though the village was wearing itself thin by repaying the villagers for their losses.

There was one more question Sasuke wanted to ask.

"You said you don't have the amount I need yet you gave away even more than that to those people. You have the money." It wasn't even that much of a question, more like a statement.

"I was expecting that." Mira showed her head from behind the pile of papers beating Yusuke in m explanation. "Those two are different budgets you see. And by Konohas law I can not use those money for anything else _but_ compensation. The general funds really are depleted trust me." after this the elder got back to her writing thus ending the conversation.

Sasuke, for some unknown reason, believed her. This Mira, even though she was a weird lady, somehow made him trust her. And Sasuke did not like that. She was acting way too normal. Way too _good_ towards him and he did not trust in _that_.

Half an hour later another small gathering came to the bank, declaring themselves as the villagers of the Pass. Sasuke did not know where such village was situated but all of them had the forms so no trouble came from them. He didn't even think that bunch noticed him standing there like a bronze statue. Soon enough they also went away.

Sasuke was also glad to discover that neither Yusuke nor Mira were the talkative kind of people. He could stand there for the whole day and not bother which was priceless to him. He enjoyed the silence way too much.

…

At exactly two in the afternoon Mira asked Sasuke to close the front door and put the 'now closed' sign in place.

For the next hour they sat in the kitchen enjoying their quiet lunch. Again not many words were offered and if some conversation did take place it was only in between the two women.

…

By evening when the bank was closed and Sasuke was getting ready to sleep he was positive he was tricked at one point. He just couldn't understand when and how.

 _And why._

…

The second and the third days went by just as calmly as the first one.

He woke up at seven in the morning, waited for his two co workers while meditating, had breakfast and then scared off some random people who were just too loud for their own good.

Sasuke came to a conclusion that either he really was good at scaring people off or Mira had lied to him about the difficulty of the job. Unfortunately he had no proof of either.

However, he learned the hard way that jumping to conclusions was a _deadly_ mistake. The one he didn't want to repeat ever again.

So he waited.

…

"You know I really don't want to get used to this." Yusuke said on his fifth evening there. The three of them were eating late dinner which consisted of fried eel tentacles and boiled vegetables. As per usual Sasuke was left alone to his thoughts but now, however, Yusuke's eyes were cast in his direction which didn't happen that often lately.

"What do you mean?" Mira wondered instead of the quiet Uchiha.

"Well, I was thinking…" the younger woman bowed her head almost in shame, "What if we request another guard from Konoha? Someone stronger? A jonin level would be good."

Mira narrowed her eyes in thought.

"Not that Kai is bad but well… you saw how he handles those situations and I think currently we need someone who's more like… Sasuke." the purple haired woman nodded at him once again before looking back at her elder.

"I'm not sure we can." Mira said deep in thought. "But I do see your point. Okay, I'll see what I can do about this."

Sasuke chewed slowly trying to think through the situation at hand. The two ladies kept reaffirming him that without his presence the bank would become an uncontrolled mess. On the other hand Sasuke had a hard time believing this no matter how many times they've said that.

"You still don't believe us don't you?" Mira said carefully.

Sasuke almost let out a smirk.

She really was peculiar.

"No."

Short. Simple.

True.

"Tomorrow try Henging into an ordinary citizen, see how it'll go. I'll call Kai over to work the morning shift." Mira stood up and put her plate into the sink. After washing it she dried her hands and moved to the exit. "If the situation will get out of hand feel free to interfere of course." she smirked and then turned to leave.

That also was short and straight to the point.

For a second Sasuke wondered why weren't all people like that, but then let go of that thought deeming it stupid.

"Great." Yusuke sighed with all the tiredness the world could offer. "I can already feel a headache coming." she then also finished her food and cleaned up after herself eventually leaving Sasuke alone without saying any goodbyes.

…

Sasuke had a really weird night.

For some reason the nightmares started to chase him once again. Showing him the deaths of his close people in gruesome details. His father, his mother… Itachi…

What's worse, he also saw Naruto and Sakura as corpses lying right in the middle of his current workplace, in a puddle of blood, while Kakashi stood over their dead bodies and demanded that Sasuke gave him the compensation for his lost.

This dream was so messed up that after waking up in cold sweat Sasuke actually let out a breathy laugh.

 _What a mess._

He did not know what exactly was a mess but his sleepy mind grabbed onto this word and it kept going over and over his head for quite some time. That is, until he heard a quiet metallic noise coming from the reception room.

It took took a minute before Sasuke realised that someone was picking the damn lock!

Sasuke was so surprised he couldn't even react properly and just sat in his bed trying to understand who would be this dumb to actually try and rob the bank. Especially when _he_ was around.

Shaking his head in disbelief he slowly got up and marched to the entrance door.

The word _mess_ still stuck in his head.

Glancing carefully through the window the Uchiha tried to see who was trying to get in but the faces of the robbers were covered in masks.

There were two of them and judging by their build they've either done a lot of physical exercises or - were ninjas.

"What's taking so long?" one of them tried to whisper.

The whisper came out almost as a scream to Sasukes ears though.

"It's not easy dumbass!"

 _Dumbass is right_ , the Uchiha thought annoyed, only a really dumb person would rob a bank like that.

Sasuke contemplated his choices.

He could open the door for them and just scare them off...but then they might return again which wasn't that good.

Or let them in, catch them and then give them off to a police or whatever they had in this town.

After a quick thinking he decided to stop on his second idea.

Sasuke moved back to the shadows in the corner and waited for the two idiots to finish. It took them some time but eventually they did managed to pick the lock.

The two robbers walked in and then without looking around went straight for the old, bulky safe which always stood in sight.

"Try opening it!" the loud one 'whispered' again.

"It won't work, I'm pretty sure it's chakra sensitive. We need to carry it out and try to open it somewhere safe."

"Then get on with it!"

Sasuke deemed this enough.

"Stop." he said calmly.

The sound of his voice made the two man freeze.

"Who's there?!" the taller, masked man questioned. "Hozumi you said Kai was not working here anymore?" the man started panicking and looking around anxiously, his one hand still on the safe.

"He's not, I swear I saw him laze around in his hut for days now!"

Sasuke took this as his cue and slowly came out of the shadows.

His eyes, one sharingan and one rinnegan, shone with a quiet resolve to end this nonsense, and these eyes made the two robbers scream in fear.

Panicking, they dashed to the exit stumbling upon their own legs but Sasuke flash stepped to the door with a ninja wire already in hand. He threw it up and made few circles with it, after the momentum ended those circles fell right on top of the two thieves making them fall facedown.

Tightening the wire around them and pushing them into a sitting position Sasuke came closer and one by one took off the masks from the men.

"U..Uch..Uchiha!" a young looking male screamed.

"No way. No way. No way..." his obvious brother started to whisper while trying to back away.

The two men looked young and probably haven't even reached their thirties the Uchiha observed. They were definitely brothers because they looked almost identical. The taller one though had a more pronounced jaw.

"Hey! You can take the safe if you want!" the guy, Hozumi, tried to deal. "We don't need it anymore!"

This only angered Sasuke.

 _Who do they think I am?_

In a span of the second Sasuke closed up on them and then looked each of them in the eye with his sharingan, successfully knocking them unconscious with a simple genjutsu.

"Not ninjas after all." the black haired man said evenly.

He turned to the door and closed it once again. Then Sasuke made sure the wires held strong enough and went back to his bed.

 _No point in sitting with them for the rest of the night._

…

The morning was even weirder for Sasuke Uchiha.

He actually overslept (finally!) and was woken up by a very confused looking Yusuke. She was banging her fist against the door of his shelter.

"What the hell Sasuke?" she asked quickly. "Who are those people?"

'What people', almost slipped from his lips but then he remembered the two brothers.

Honestly Sasuke had a hard time shaking off sleep. The nightmares took their toll on the still recovering teen.

"Robbers." he answered slowly.

"What?!" her question rang through the room.

Just let me sleep, he almost said out loud but caught himself in time and instead got up. Frowning.

Hard.

"Is Mira here?" Sasuke inquired while putting on his jacket.

 _What time is it?_

"In the main room." the purple haired woman replied quickly.

Both workers went to the said room after Sasuke finished dressing up.

"Sasuke?" Mira asked immediately after she saw him walk in. "Why do we have two unconscious people tied up here?"

The headmistress looked confused but a hint of smile was already playing on her lips.

"They tried to steal the safe last night."

The womans eyes went wide in surprise. "Did they? What a lousy idea… it's created from a special steel no one can even budge it." she murmured amused. "What fools must they be." she commented but then her face became quite serious. "Or just desperate people… can you wake them up?" she asked kindly.

"They will wake up on their own." he answered quickly. He just didn't have any desire to get close to those two again.

He heard her letting out a short sigh but otherwise Mira kept quiet.

"Should I signal to the nearby ANBU?" Yusuke finally spoke. Her hand already in a concentration sign.

"No." the elder woman said bemused. "The convoy from Konoha will to come soon. They will deal with them." Mira turned to Sasuke again. "Looks like you don't need to Henge into anyone Uchiha, I received the hawk at the crack of dawn today. Your money should arrive soon, I believe in few hours top."

Now that was something Sasuke was very pleased to hear! He could finally move on with his travels and go back to the woods.

It was about time.

For the next hour the three followed their usual morning routine. They had breakfast and then waited for Mira to deal with her piles of papers all the while keeping watch over the two unconscious men. Not that they would go anywhere Sasuke mused.

When eight o'clock came they didn't open the bank, even though a small crowd was already waiting by the entrance.

" _After_ we deal with the refill and these two." the elder woman said offhandedly.

In a span of another hour the previous guard finally showed up. Late, for some reason.

He looked at the two tied people with with a raised eyebrow but otherwise kept quiet. Sasuke could hear 'They're still at it?' murmur coming from him.

So this happened often, he concluded.

"Mira-sama." Kai bowed.

The said woman pulled up her head and with a wave greater the man.

This didn't surprise the guard and he moved to Yusuke casting giant grin her way.

"You had fun?" he asked chivalrously.

"I had rest." the purple haired lady replied with a unmoving face and a fleeting glance at Sasuke.

No one in the room missed the intended joke but no one commented on it.

Sasuke just no longer cared. He wanted out.

Seeing that Kai was here he went to the still clean room and gathered his small possessions back in his bag.

How they'd managed to scatter around the small room Sasuke had no idea.

Deciding he had time the Uchiha went to the shower and quickly cleaned himself. Double checking his stump for any liquids.

It was still dry.

After his water procedures Sasuke packed his last remaining possessions (toothbrush and a towel) and put on his cloak.

When he came back to the reception room two more people had joined in making the room feel crowded. No words were exchanged while the transition happened but the ninja that carried the funds scroll kept giving Sasuke weird glances. Which he ignored of course.

"Sasuke come here." Mira called him over when everything was done. "Can you give us a second?" the elder asked Yusuke politely. She wanted to talk to Sasuke alone.

The lady compiled and went to the backroom leaving Kai and the two ninjas to deal with the robbers.

"Here, your money." the brown haired woman took out a storage scroll and handled it to him. Sasuke was thankful for that little detail. Storage scrolls were handy.

He nodded to the woman and was about to leave when she bent forward and whispered. "You have a black haired ANBU tailing you." she started. Sasuke nodded again, he knew that already. "He's the one who asked me to take you in. At first I did not have such intentions."

This time Sasukes eyes did widen.

 _This explains everything..._

"I'm glad for it now though, you're a nice brat, arrogant and all but nice enough. Good luck on your travels." with this as her goodbye she turned around and walked to the three ninja near the robbers. "Don't tell me you don't know how to dispel a genjutsu!" he heard her clear voice.

Letting out a smirk Sasuke put the scroll in his bag and walked out of the bank.

It was time to continue with his journey.

* * *

Read.

Enjoy.

Review! Your opinion counts!

P.S. Sorry to those whose inbox was spammed with alerts.

FF and I had a fight over the formating. I dearly hope I won.


	11. Chapter 11

Sasuke was sitting on a random rooftop for almost an hour, starting at the newly purchased, and very _detailed_ , map of the world.

On the outside the male looked perfectly calm and collected as he traced lines and circles around his future destinations. On the inside, however, the Uchiha was fuming in disbelief.

 _All those dots..._

There were so many villages that he could have gone to! All of them with working banks! More than a week's worth of time could have been saved but no, he somehow managed to pick a road that was the most secluded and even get a job...

 _Whoever said ignorance is a bliss was an incompetent fool._

Sasuke continued to study the map and worked hard to ignore the blinding anger within.

 _Whatever happened - happened._

 _..._

Another thing that the Uchiha could not help but notice (after he took some few, deep breaths to calm himself) was the fact that the 'world' was actually cut around the corners.

 _Why isn't the whole continent shown?_

Sasuke frowned, confused, but then it hit him.

 _All_ the maps were like this.

 _Is there something out there? Something we are not aware_ _of?_

He remembered Monokes parting words and his eyes slightly widened.

' _Try crossing the desert, you'll be surprised.'_

Did the hunter travel beyond the borders?

Had he truly crossed the desert?!

Unconsciously Sasuke traced the edge of the paper but then he shook his head, took another breath and returned to studying the terrain around him. His previous thoughts returning with new vigor.

 _Later..._ he promised to himself.

...

Currently Sasuke found himself in between the land of Rivers and Fire, in the village that carried a very practical name for such a settlement - Border Village.

On the map it was shown as a big red dot and it even had few numbers written out near it pointing to the back of the parchment. On the said back there was a short list of the most visited places recommended to all the passing by tourists.

"The Cliff Hotel…" he read out slowly, unsure, "The Hanging Head Bar… The Casino of Great Heights…?" Sasuke read the list out loud and couldn't help but stare dubiously at it.

 _Who the hell came up with such names?_

He shook his head and scoffed.

This was so stupid Sasuke found it hard to believe that such idiocy actually existed in everyday life.

Did people even go there?...

For some reason Sasuke remembered the famed gumbling of the fifth and realised to his own horror that yes, some did visit such places!

Sasuke closed his eyes trying to clear his head.

 _Whatever..._

Out of sheer principle the Uchiha searched around the perimeter until he found the village of the Pass already with a half formed idea swirling in the back of his head.

Sasuke hoped his assumption proved to be true.

He found the village as a small white dot which was painted in between two relatively small mountains. It marked the entrance to the valley long enough that it formed a natural road for all those who wished to cross the River Nation, with a wide river running throughout all its length. Sasuke traced the valley and the road with ease all the way up to Rain Village and if the map was correct the road also had Inns along its way to make the cross easier.

 _This is perfect,_ he concluded. Pleased with the fact that his guess proved right. _It really is a Pass._

Next the Uchiha tried to judge the distance he needed to walk. The terrain looked easy enough to cross and Sasuke deducted that it would take him no more than four days to reach the border with Rain. Around two to reach the Pass since there were three rather big mountains on his way there and another two days to cross the valley itself.

Now that he had money and could take the needed provision with him the planned journey didn't stand as over complicated one.

At least that's what he hoped for.

...

It was past midday when Sasuke finished his scheming. His plan of action was fully set and all he had to do is go get food and move out.

Unfortunately for the black haired male though, thunder clouds had once again covered the sky above promising to unleash heavy rain to those without cover. Sasuke spent almost half an hour more on the cold, windy rooftop just staring at the sky, hoping that the rain would somehow pass.

The storm however proved to be unavoidable.

Cursing quietly because of the yet another delay Sasuke jumped back to the busy streets of the village below and set out to find an Inn before the heavy downpour begun.

The hanging pressure of the incoming storm made people hectic and many were running around, hurriedly closing the shops and putting away everything that could accidentally get carried with the wind.

No matter the uncontrolled rush though, Sasukes road was always people free and the Uchiha was both pleased and angered by this fact.

'Don't get in my way.' and 'Why the hell are you so scared?' were both playing in his head at the same time making Sasuke scoff at his own bipolar thoughts.

...

Sasuke didn't cover that much distance before he saw an old, wooden sign that read: Humashis Inn.

'Enter at Your Own Risk' was added below by an unknown someone, probably with the use of a kunai knife. The author of the inscription was either really drunk or really sick because the writing was so edgy it was pitiful to look at. By the withered look of the wood the Uchiha had guessed the inn had survived more than just few winters which meant the innkeeper was more…. _experienced_ when it came to shinobi.

Which was good.

Ordinary citizens had based themselves too much on their fears.

This train of thought sounded legit to Sasuke so with a nod (and as per usual) he looked around himself to check for his followers and then, when he found none, he entered the dimly lit, smoky hall.

The inside smelled of old wood and earth. A combination Sasuke found only deep in the wilderness where the sun didn't touch the ground for years because of the mighty trees that spread their branches for hundreds of meters around.

As Sasuke closed the door behind him he saw that the thick storm clouds outside had fell down so close to the ground that what used to be midday now felt and looked as though it was the middle of the night. Few windows that were present in the hall didn't provide enough light and the only source that did was a lit fireplace at the far left corner of the room, making Sasuke feel as though it really was night time. The sound of the cracking wood was the only thing heard in all of the hall and Sasuke also felt no one currently present. The hall was empty.

The innkeeper was apparently absent.

 _This place is ancient,_ the male thought in awe as he looked around. People stopped using firepits inside the houses decades ago while this one was still up and working.

The right side of the hall was just one big table and one big bench made from the same dark wood as the sign outside. When he looked closer Sasuke saw that the surface of the table was scratched all over with different symbols and names, to Sasuke it looked like a weird patterned picture. Curiously almost all nations somehow found their way on that table with their signs and even motos written out elegantly.

Strangely, it looked appealing to Sasuke.

"Huh, will you look at that, an Uchiha! Didn't see your clanmates in my humble abode for years!"

Sasukes head turned to the counter almost at lightning speed.

 _When did he get here?_

Sasuke abandoned his observation and focused on the bold, really old looking individual at the reception table ( _was he always there?!_ ), dressed in a striking white robes that reached the floor. The man's voice was rough and raspy as he spoke and he even coughed few times probably in hopes of clearing his throat. His eyes were so slim they almost looked like they were closed to Sasuke, with wrinkles deep enough that they covered up half of his tanned, thin face. "Though I can't say I'm offended," he rumbled on, "you fellas always act as though you have the whole wide world stuck at your backside." the man coughed few more times and then added, "No fun, no fun at all you know. Must be uncomfortable."

Sasuke stood glued to the clean wooden floor beneath him.

 _This man…_

"How old are you?" _and why didn't I sense you?_ he asked trying to sound calm even though his insides had turned to a rock.

This was not an ordinary stranger.

"It's not polite to ask elders of their age you fool!" the man rasped with a fist high in the air and more energy than Sasuke thought possible of him. "I swear people had forgotten what manners really are these days."

Sasuke stood his ground and stared hard at the man in front of him, trying to intimidate the hell out of this old grandpa.

"Not going to work youngster." the elder spoke easily, uninterested, brushing off the male's attempt. "I've worked for far too long here and saw people far more scarier looking than you so cut it out, this type of acting should be below you if you really _are_ strong." The man put his two feeble looking hands on the counter and invited Sasuke to come closer. "Now tell me what you want. A place to wait up up the storm? It will pass fast you know, I saw so many of them come and go... Or maybe a room to stay the night? What will it be?"

He stopped talking and became so still he looked like a statue.

His eyes still hidden.

"A room for one night," Sasuke said evenly his brows furrowed. "How old are you?" he tried again.

"Old enough to know your grandparents boy, now stop asking questions you don't need to know the answers for." the reply was curt and sounded almost angry but then Sasuke saw a small change in the man's face, it was so minor one could miss it completely if not observant enough.

"It's in my blood to live long, that's all I will say." after that the elder bend down and took up a box full of keys, then he started to go over each one, searching, apparently bent to ignore any incoming questions about age.

"Humashi," Sasuke asked on. "You are of Uzumaki blood aren't you?"

That was a statement.

 _There. Let's see how that works._

Humashi stopped his search with a random key still in his hand and looked Sasuke straight in the eyes. Now the black haired male could see that they were as grey as the thunder clouds outside but looked very much alive.

And was that curiosity?...

"A smart ninja we have here it seems." Humashi said impressed and lifted his one very thin eyebrow. Sasuke let out a smirk but then it disappeared and was replaced with a frown. "The Uchihas are dead."

It did not have the desired effect Sasuke had hoped for because Humashi replied just with a simple 'I know,' and then got back to sorting his keys. After a small pause in which Sasuke decided he had enough and was ready to leave the man spoke again, so calmly one would say he just didn't care.

About anything.

"But here you are, looking quite healthy and almost in one piece." Humashi obviously nodded to Sasukes stump but otherwise continued. "And you are of age, that means soon enough we'll have more Uchiha's running around." he said this as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sasuke stared.

 _To use such tone and yet say such things..._

"You sound too sure of yourself."

The old man let such a smirk it could rival that of Naruto Uzumaki. "Should I not be?"

The Uchiha frowned. This was becoming some weird word playing game.

"Maybe you shouldn't," Sasuke admitted and looked at the polished wood below his feet. Family was not something he believed he would ever be ready for. Not with how messed up he was. And maybe that was for the better…

 _To get rid of this curse forever._

"My, my you are too depressed for such a young age..." the elder finally stopped his random search and put a small, delicate looking key on the counter for Sasuke to see. "Maybe some sleep will fix it. You look like you need it."

Humashi suddenly stopped, long, thin fingers still holding the key, and then let out a quiet, thoughtful hum, "And if not sleep than maybe some rest while surrounded by four walls. You won't be interrupted."

Sasuke looked at the counter and hastily grabbed the metal object.

"Second floor, last door to your right." the bold man narrated as Sasuke was walking off. "I will expect payment when you will be ready to leave. Any broken surfaces, if such I will find in the given room, will be paid for by you. Have a good stay at Humashi Inn."

Once again the elders voice had changed. Now it sounded monotonous and bored as if he said this phrase for so many times he forgot the actual meaning of it. The last thing the sole Uchiha heard was a quiet 'poor youngsters..' escaping the white lips of the assumed Uzumaki.

…

Only three rooms apart from his were occupied. The chakra signatures were so small in each of them that Sasuke believed they were all simple travelers and posed no danger to him. And by danger he meant talking, answering questions and just being in presence of other human beings.

 _Or Gods... or summons... or half immortal beings and weird old people..._

The Uchiha had his share for now.

...

Sasukes own room was situated on the other side of the building, farthest away from other, populated ones. He believed Humashi had done this on purpose. Why, the male had no idea but the fact that he was always somehow helped made the boy monumentally pissed.

He did not deserve it for fucks sake!

...

The key he received was new and made out of hard, white metal. It was very familiar to Sasuke but he cared little about why. It was not important. The door, the Uchiha noticed, was also new and still carried the smell of fresh paint.

 _I wouldn't be surprised if the previous one was destroyed by someone._

 _By someone who was in the same mood as I am now._

He remembered the warning he read on the entrance sign and had a strong hunch that this was connected, somehow… edgy lines and all.

As Sasuke walked into his sleeping quarters he couldn't help but notice the drastic difference in the design.

The main hall was ancient, dark and mostly made out of massive wood and in some places out of polished rocks while the room he saw in front of him now was all brand new, elegant and spacy.

Modern.

The furniture was scarce but there was an enormous closet which took up the whole wall and had a giant mirror instead of a door at one side.

 _Too much luxury for just one night,_ Sasuke concluded with yet another wave of anger.

 _Why did he give me this..?_

 _Whatever._

Sasukes first stop was the bathroom since he needed to relieve himself. After that was done the black haired male moved to the window and gauged the weather outside.

The windows, Sasuke couldn't help but muse, were also new. Until he opened the blinds not a sound was heard and the Uchiha quite honestly thought that the rain hadn't started yet and he had time to go out for food. But now when he saw the wall of water that was falling from the sky outside he couldn't help but stare in shock... and then frown in displeasure.

This day was just getting more and more weird.

Sasuke tried to open a window to let some fresh, ozone filled air in but a strong gust of wind had closed it back with a force to be reckoned with. The male did not wish to fight the nature so he did not repeat his attempt.

 _What to do…_

The Uchiha closed his eyes as a scowl had settled on his face. The first signs of boredom were creeping in and Sasuke was becoming way too restless.

Walking or any other physical activities kept this side of him controlled but now...

 _If I don't do something about this they might need not just a new door but an entire new building. If not town._

An eye twitch like no other had attacked Sasuke's left eye making the male let out a quiet growl. Almost desperate like.

 _What to do..._

Opening his eyes Sasuke went over the room once again searching for something that could catch his interest. Mismatched eyes fell on the giant closet once again but this time Sasuke studied not the thing itself but his own reflexion in it.

His eyes looked tired and red. That was the thing that stood out the most, visible even in such bad lighting. And there were bags under his eyes which gave away his obvious lack of sleep.

 _I need to do something about this…_ He thought solemnly. After that Sasukes gaze fell on his dirty traveler's cloak and that's when it finally hit him.

 _The clothes! I wanted to wash them._

Manual labor was definitely better than doing nothing. Especially when it was only past an hour after midday and he had the whole day free thanks to the weather.

 _It is decided then._

After checking the lock on his door Sasuke took his bag and marched to the bathroom. Once inside he started to take off his cloak, then he stripped of his shirt, pans and all of his under clothing until he was standing bare naked on the cold, white floor.

All possessions that he had stored in his pockets were neatly put to the side and after rechecking one more time for any missed items he dumped the bundle of cloth in the shower praising all the known gods for his love of black colors.

 _No need to repeat the process._

Since there were no stains all Sasuke had to do was fill the tub with warm water and soap the cloth well before rinsing everything for few times. That was enough to clean the dust and dirt away. And this is what the Uchiha had done for the next hour.

The labor helped the black haired male to keep his mind empty. In fact it was so empty Sasuke felt as though he was almost meditating. This couldn't have turned out any better!

By the time the wash ended and his costume was drying off Sasukes mind was calm and no trace of previous anger and confusion was left.

 _No rush,_ the Uchiha reminded himself once again, _I have all the time in the world._

After this reminder Sasuke went back to the room and decided to act on his earlier observation.

In other words - he went to sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

When Sasuke woke up it was pitch dark.

The only light present in the room was a lone, bluish ray breaking in from the outside through the crack in the blinds. Through it and in it Sasuke could see thousands of small dust particles lazily flying around with no direction whatsoever.

At first they reminded him of falling snow. But as he looked closer he decided they actually looked like stars, with how they reflected the light while twisting and turning in the air.

All of this made everything look...strange.

For a moment Sasuke even felt disoriented as to where he was.

Outside? Inside? Was that the moon shining through?...

...

When his sleepy gaze fell on the big mirror door of the closet the memories caught up to him.

 _Right, the weird inn..._

"Stupid thing," he sighed tiredly and turned away realising with disgust just how dusty the room was. Plus, it was just too weird to wake up to your own reflexion staring back at you.

Realising that he won't be able to go back to sleep anytime soon and that his thoughts just took a very weird turn which he did not particularly like the Uchiha got up and marched to the bathroom to check on his drying clothes.

They were still dump.

Being naked was _not_ how he planned to spend his evening.

"Now what?" he asked from no one in particular.

His mood was strangely neutral but he still felt out of it after sleeping at such weird hours of the day. There was no answer from above to Sasukes great dismay but he did spot a yukata hanging on the back of the door. By the smell of the fabric Sasuke concluded that it was washed not so long ago.

Which was good enough. He could work with that.

After quickly pulling it on and grabbing some ryo from his weapon pack the Uchiha left the room. It was only past seven in the evening as a small clock on the wall told him and if this inn was like any other ninja inns then it meant people were only now starting to gather in the main hall.

…

Earlier that day the main room was completely devoid of any presence, now, however, it was filled with customers from all over. Sasuke saw a lot of ninja from different countries, sitting on their own even though there was only one table in the hall. Most of them were drinking various beverages and judging by their unfocused eyes Sasuke figured those drinks were far from being alcohol free. He also saw a family dining right in the middle of this massive red table. They were talking and laughing loudly at some story told by their father, obviously not caring if they were overheard. Few seats away from them he spotted a pair of Sand shinobi who constantly stole glances at the family. At first Sasuke was afraid they were targeted but when he saw a kid and his mother gesture eagerly for them to join and the sand ninjas obvious decline Sasuke deducted they were probably guards.

All in all it was lively.

Not exactly what Sasuke was looking for but it had to suffice. He only needed to grab a quick dinner anyways.

Ignoring the stares he got from the people close to him he slowly made his way to the counter. The old man Humashi was standing there in the same position as before. Even his facial expression was the same. 'Universally bored' was written on his face with big, bold letters so that everyone could see and appreciate it.

The Uchiha couldn't help but get curious about this individual. Once again he felt no chakra presence coming from him yet here he was. Right before his eyes. Probably alive.

Sasuke wondered if the old man even moved since their meeting all those hours ago.

He took the last steps to the counter and finally stopped right in front of the bold man.

The minute the presumed Uzumaki saw Sasukes face he straightened his posture and a sly smile found its way onto his face. He even looked few decades younger like this to Sasukes inner surprise and too much alike to a certain blond friend of his.

 _The Uzumaki people are beyond weird._

"Uchiha!" he greeted as if he knew some of his darkest secrets.

"Sasuke." the young male corrected after hearing the nearby unanimous ninja exclaim with an alarmed 'what?!' "There's no need or announce my presence for everyone to stare."

"As if people would not notice your more than obvious rinnegan staring back at them."

Sasuke frowned at this but then took a deep breath and calmed himself.

"I need food."

Humashi quirked one eyebrow up at this and looked to the side uninterested, "Don't we all?"

Sasuke couldn't help but let out a small breath.

 _Of course._

"What are you serving tonight?"

Another smile, this time a more honest one. "There we go! Asking the right questions is a job half way done!" _Figures._ "Let's see," Humashis eyes became unfocused as he began to list things out. "We have some rice and beans, seaweed soup, fried vegetables, sweet dango and some onigiri with shrimps but those are expensive though, so far from the sea we are..." He hummed a bit but then shrugged and nodded his head to show that that was it.

Sasuke took a moment to evaluate his current state of hunger.

"Rice with vegetables and beans." He concluded with ease. _Yes. That should suffice._

"A please would be nice you know! I swear the manners these days are just…" the old man kept on rumbling as he disappeared from view.

 _Now he moves_ Sasuke thought with a bit of curiosity _and yet still no chakra presence._

How much secrets did this world have? The Uchihas mind wondered. Once again he felt his interest piqued.

So many people. So much to learn.

Deciding that the wait might be a long one Sasuke turned to the room once again and looked closer to the way people sat there.

Unsurprisingly both sides of the table were more crowded than the middle. Mostly by ninjas as they sat each on their own. The young Uchiha tried to find a good place among the crowd but the only spot which was mostly free was right in the middle close to the chatting family. Which meant noise. Still, he decided, it's better than the looks he would get from the others.

As Sasuke was waiting few of the customers got up and walked to the counter to put off their utensils, one of them frowned but for some reason nodded to the Uchiha. And then they were off to the streets outside.

It was drizzling and it still looked like the clouds were heavy in the sky.

"Take your food boy!" came a raspy voice from behind just as the door docked in its original place.

Sasuke blinked.

And then he heard the elder naming the price and a quiet rustling of fabric. The boy slowly turned back and eyed the plate in front of him as well as the person who carried it. Humashi was standing with an outstretched hand and a grin clearly visible.

Just as he guessed the portion was big. Maybe even too big but he didn't say anything. It's how places like these worked. Without commenting Sasuke handed the needed amount to the owner and headed to the middle of the sturdy table, ignoring Humashis weird mirth which refused to leave his eyes.

For the first few minutes nothing happened and Sasuke ate in quiet, enjoying his first decent meal. Whoever cooked this was very skilled. Ignoring the noise around him was fairly easy. And no one glared at his direction too which was somewhat weird since earlier he was being watched by quite a few individuals. However it was too good to last and soon he felt the first intensive gaze on his person. Turning around he was surprised to find that it was the young girl looking at him with her wide honey colored eyes framed by Sandy colored hair.

Typical Wind country colors.

She was not sitting far from him and was looking at both of his eyes with an unhidden curiosity.

"Is this eye real?" she tried to whisper and even covered half of her mouth with her small hand.

Sasuke blinked at his plate before focusing once again on the girl.

He frowned but nodded anyways turning away to the side trying to hide the sages parting gift.

 _She's not scared though._

"Does it mean that red eyes are also real?" the girl asked again her voice colored with a hint of amusement and disbelief.

Sasukes frown deepened and he turned to the child once again.

These were _not_ innocent questions.

He saw the mother of the kid finally turning in their direction, her warm smile changing almost immediately to that of concern and worry.

"Kiri-chan are you making this young man uncomfortable?" she asked with a serious tone. Louder than it was needed for their proximity.

Caution.

This earned the attention from half of the table. Unsurprisingly the two guards from Sand slowly reached for their weapons. Sasuke saw that but chose to stay as he was.

"No, no mommy! I was just asking about red eyes, like those from dad's story. The ones that can do aaall sorts of stuff!" she quickly looked at her father who was observing the whole situation with a calm air to it. Their younger child who was left alone immediately seized the situation and started to reach out for the food he was most definitely not allowed to eat yet, judging by his sneaky smirk and a wink he deliberately sent Sasukes way while no one paid attention.

The Uchiha pretended he did not see any of that.

"Of course you'd remember this." meanwhile the father of the two laughed easily. He then looked Sasuke straight in the eyes and tilted his head as if an idea had formed in it.

Sasuke hoped it was not what he was thinking.

 _Better finish this quickly._ He decided with unease and quickened his pace. _Damn these big portions._

"So I did hear it right!" came the man's sudden exclamation. Sasuke let out a short breath and closed his eyes already preparing for the next line. "You are Sasuke Uchiha!" he then laughed some more as if he cracked some sort of puzzle. Quickly turning to his daughter he pointed to the young Uchiha, "Now, Kiriko, do you remember what I told you about the red eyes?" he proceed as if it was just another story.

Sasuke wanted to question the man. What sort of storied was he telling his kids?!

The girl pouted for a bit and then looked at her father like a child would look at distasteful food. However afterwards she just shrugged and smiled again.

"The whole story?" she asked innocently.

Sasuke still had half of the plate unfinished. He was contemplating on leaving it right there as it was but the rational part of his brain refused to waste food. Especially after his most recent experience of not having it.

He saw as the father quickly shook his head no to the girl and turned back to look at him.

 _The hell with all of this?_

"The red eyes, Sharingan, are the kekkei genkai of one of the clans that settled down and formed Konoha. A ninja village."

"Good." The father smiled. "And the name of the clan was?" he cautiously pushed the little kid and got back to looking at Sasuke.

But Sasuke was left there sitting confused.

These were not the stories you would tell to your kids! What was the man trying to accomplish?

"The Uchiha clan." The girl, Kiriko, said and slowly Sasuke saw her eyes widen and she turned to look at the black haired boy once again. This time her eyes even more wide.

 _How is that even possible…_

"And you're an Uchiha?" she asked in disbelief and almost in a whisper.

A heavy frown settled upon Sasukes face.

 _Relax,_ he ordered to himself. And he did so with more ease than he initially though he was capable of.

After few more deep breaths, just to make sure, he looked at the girl again.

She had such an excited look on her face that Sasuke couldn't help but stare dubiously at her.

A child she was she moved closer to him (which made the family guards _very_ tense) and grabbed his yukata in the place where his hand used to be. Sasuke could swear he somehow felt her touching his arm. _Phantom feelings,_ ran in the back if his head.

"Can I see!" she almost shouted and even jumped a bit when she concluded that yes he was an Uchiha. But then the child probably remembered her manners and repeated again this time more calmly. "Can I see? Please?" she still tugged on his sleeve a bit harder than needed though.

Sasuke stole a quick glance at the rest of the family. The father gave a calm nod, the mother looked more worried but otherwise also voiced no complaints.

The youngest kid caught his attention the most though. He was the smartest out of all of them in Sasukes opinion. The child was quietly stealing all the sweats from the table and hiding them in all places available to him. His pockets, sleeves and mouth. For a second Sasuke felt in a way connected to the kid. He didn't, couldn't, put the reason why it was so but when the kid winked again Sasuke was sure that this little moment shared between them was in a way very important. Hidden while no one was looking.

This earned a very small but still a smile from the usually stoick Uchiha.

When later someone asked him why he complied with such a stupid request as showing his sharingan he'd never answer in all honesty but he knew that he did it not because of the girl who was apparently fascinated with the stories she was receiving from her dad and sought to see if they were true or not, and not because he wanted in a way to impress the guards and people in the room - no. It was because of the sneaky little kid who after exhausting his hiding places nodded to the black haired man and sat back on his butt with a victorious grin on his face.

 _A smart kid he is._

For the rest of the dinner Sasuke sat together with the family and listened as the father told a story of a young blond boy who had nothing, and yet later ended up being friends with a big red fox because of his kindness.

The girl once again protested in disbelieve and pouted at her father while shaking her small hands, "But foxes don't get as big as mountains dad!.."

Sasuke enjoyed the story very much.


End file.
